Things happen when people are not where they belong, and the world moves forward and back by that principle.

I'm not one of those people who as a writer lets my characters tell me what they want to do or call to me or seek me. I go seeking for things, using them as an agent, really.

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.

My job is to have empathy and curiosity for things that I've never done. Also, I'm a person whom people talk to.

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.

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

If sportswriting teaches you anything, and there is much truth to it as well as plenty of lies, it is that for your life to be worth anything you must sooner or later face the possibility of terrible, searing regret. Though you must also manage to avoid it or your life will be ruined.