I happen to love football so much and hate myself for loving it.

Much as I love stories, I think I'll only be satisfied with myself as a writer if I'm able to produce a novel that feels publishable. The books that truly take me away - for weeks at a time - are all novels.

Most forms of rage, after all, are only sloppy cloaks for grief.

The truth is, every sport has been turned into a huge, nihilistic business.

I really believe that art has to play a role in changing the moral direction. Mean, selfish people are in charge of the government and we're letting them make us into a much meaner culture. It reminds me of McCarthyism, to be honest, and to the early stages of fascism. There are people out there cheering for war, treating those deaths like some kind of athletic event. How sick do we have to be that this is not only acceptable, but virtually unchallenged by other politicians or clergy or anyone? And it's artists who have to stand up and be counted. Right now.

I 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.

I love men, the restlessness of their corrupted souls, the way they hide their heavy, murderous hearts, their sudden delicacies and small shocking acts of tenderness.