The National Rifle Association is a domestic terrorist organization that tacitly supports the killing of children more than it supports reasoned gun legislation.

Someone wanted me to write a profile for ESPN about the commissioner of baseball, and I said, "He's just some suit! Some Republican. No!" I mean if you want me to write about baseball, boxing or football, I'll write about those things because I watch them, I think about them a lot and I like them. But I don't want to write about Barry Bonds.

I started reading literature at 17 or 18, and I felt this extra beat to life.

The world is a more engaging and less dramatic place than writers ever give it credit for being

Your life doesn't mean what you have or what you get. Its what your'e willing to give up.

Being a slow reader would normally be a deficiency; I found a way to make it an asset. I began to sound words and see all those qualities - in a way it made words more precious to me. Since so much of what happens in the world between human beings has to do with the inconsideration of language, with the imprecision of language, with language leaving our mouths unmediated, one thing which was sensuous and visceral led to, in the use of language, a moral gesture. It was about trying to use language to both exemplify and articulate what good is.

And I think that in myself (and perhaps evident in what I write) fear of loss and the corresponding instinct to protect myself against loss are potent forces.