Even a hundred and fifty years ago, football was popular because it provided a manly spectacle that lots of men needed, after the industrial revolution. We went from a culture that lived out doors and expanded the frontier and fought the Indians to a bunch of guys in offices. So football provided this jolt, a kind of exalted cult of masculinity. And it still does that. Perhaps even more so today.
Steve AlmondAmericans seem to be living in a state of fear about the world, one that just keeps intensifying. I mean, look at our cars and homes. They've become these massive barricades. Look at what we watch on TV and in the movies - it's all a bunch of violent ideation. And all these TV shows about dead bodies.
Steve AlmondWhy are people so fascinated by how to eat Valomilks?โ She said, โWell, Dad, theyโre round and theyโre messy. But thatโs what makes them fun. Once we get older weโre not supposed to be messy anymore. But for one moment when youโre eating a Valomilk, itโs okay to be messy again.
Steve AlmondBut something occurred to me as I sped through that dirty shroud of fog, something Vonnegut has been trying to explain to the rest of us for most of his life. And that is this: Despair is a form of hope. It is an acknowledgment of the distance between ourselves and our appointed happiness. At certain moments, it is reason enough to live.
Steve AlmondWe need books...because we are all, in the private kingdoms of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend.
Steve AlmondI want to view my own efforts to write a novel as a function of my own artistic aspirations rather than a good career move. And I need to learn how to commit to characters for a longer time, to confront the limits of my own capacities for attention and compassion. That's what a writing career does, in the best instance: it allows you to keep after what you can't do.
Steve Almond