Baseball’s absolute unpredictability makes amateurs of us all.

Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young.

I felt what I almost always feel when I am watching a ballgame: Just for those two or three hours, there is really no place I would rather be.

Writing is hard, even for authors who do it all the time.

The best defense against partisanship is expertise.

I knew I wasn't a baseball writer. I was scared to death. I really was afraid to talk to players, and I didn't want to go into the press box because I thought I was faking it.

The great thing about catchers is that they do a lot of different things, and they're basically overlooked.

Life is tough and brimming with loss, and the most we can do about it is to glimpse ourselves clear now and then, and find out what we feel about familiar scenes and recurring faces this time around.

What really makes baseball so hard is it's retributive capacity for disaster if the smallest thing is done wrong, and the invisible presence of defeat that attends every game.

I think I wrote once that baseball in many ways is very much like reading. I said there are more bad books than bad ballgames, or maybe it was the other way around. I can't remember.

Those who live by the wall must die by the wall.

Everybody looks a little crazy if you're looking close enough and if you can't look that close, then you don't really love them.

Anybody who's putting out records is probably not making money at it.

The professor, instead of being the "sage on the stage," functions as a "guide on the side."

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

From what might appear to you to be small choices, the Lord will lead you to the happiness you want. Through your choices He will be able to bless countless others.

Transformation can only take place immediately; the revolution is now, not tomorrow.

Acting gave me the opportunity to do outrageous things. It allowed me to be sad, happy, angry and lustful, even if it was just vicariously.

So go ahead, break stuff. Break yourself on the once-hard edges of yourself. And recycle the debris into the foundation of your future.

The best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.

Of course I do things in my voice in my commentary, which I wrote.