There's something incredibly liberating about a holiday that encourages children to take candy from strangers

At the end of night, before you close your eyes, be content with what you've done and be proud of who you are.

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

Part of what depresses me so much about football is that it's so clearly about exploiting people, most of them poor boys of color, because of what they can do to entertain us, not because we have any genuine concern for them as people.

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.

All language is an aspiration to music.

I have a hard time defending the production of candy, given that it is basically crack for children and makes them dependent in unwholesome ways.