People in both fields operate with beliefs and biases. To the extent you can eliminate both and replace them with data, you gain a clear advantage.

I always find with my stories that the way they start is that I just get so interested in a person that I'm compelled to go back to them over and over until I learn more and more about them, without even quite thinking it's material for a book.

The sentimentality of baseball is very deeply rooted in the American baseball fan. It is the one sport that is transmitted from fathers to sons.

I was gonna put him on the bus...I got tired of him talking, it was time for him to go home.

You want the book to be special, and they are not always going to be special, but at least you want that to be the ambition. So the only way that happens is if you are not pressing to write a book.

As idiotic as optimism can sometimes seem, it has a weird habit of paying off.

My judgement is not good when I am on a book tour. I am not thinking about it that much. What happens is I will go back home. I have a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old and a wife who is now taking care of them who is wondering where her husband is.