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

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.

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.

Baseball’s absolute unpredictability makes amateurs of us all.

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.

Taking what is, then making it into what it can be through the power of creation that we all possess.

To live in the realm of Buddha nature means to die as a small being, moment after moment.

I also have a soft spot for spicy chicken wings. They are always best eaten at dives and sports bars, like Wogie's in the West Village, New York City, near my house.

The most important thing is the indigenous people are not vindictive by nature. We are not here to oppress anybody - but to join together and build Bolivia, with justice and equality.

Health care reform, the marquee legislative accomplishment of the Obama administration's first term, was passed before we entered the world of divided government.

There is nothing as unreal as life.

If you want to understand a difficult or trying person, begin by asking the question: 'What is the wound they are trying to heal?'

Disability is an art - an ingenious way to live.

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilised music in the world.

Encouragement is the most important thing in the world for young people, rather than league tables, which demoralise everyone.