Mr. Feld was right; life was like baseball, filled with loss and error, with bad hops and wild pitches, a game in which even champions lost almost as often as they won, and even the best hitters were put out seventy percent of the time.

The handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard is so pitifully low.

That's why school was invented - to give your parents some peace and quiet during the day.

For me, nostalgia is an involuntary emotion. ... I think it's just a natural human response to loss.

I have a deadline. I'm glad. I think that will help me get it done.

Every Messiah fails, the moment he tries to redeem himself.

What smells strongly of crap to one generation - Victorian penny dreadfuls, the music of the Archies, the Lone Ranger radio show, blaxploitation films of the seventies - so often becomes a fruitful source of inspiration, veneration, and study for those to come, while certified Great and Worthy Art molders and fades on its storage rack, giving off an increasingly powerful whiff of naphthalene.