That impulse, which is a great impulse, is one of the things that rock is about: you want to be authentic. I think that’s why it’s so hard to be an aging rocker. Aging is all about concession: concession to the body, concession to other people.
We live in a culture that has never really encouraged artists; that has never prioritized art as something worthy to do with your life. …. Any movement that can encourage people, that says, “Yeah, you can do this,” is worthwhile.
For Lucretius, the idea of a “swerve” was what secured the idea of human freedom. All you needed was the tiniest movement of the atoms …. It’s tiny, but it actually turns out to have huge consequences.
The Presidents of the United States of America, Sorted Into Hogwarts Houses
42. Bill Clinton – Slytherin
43. George W. Bush – Hufflepuff
44. Barack Obama – Ravenclaw
In a way, I write about sports so I can write about writers without, well, writing about writers which is, in most instances, pretty boring.
Happy 80th Birthday, George Jones!
Tonight, let’s grab a shot and a beer and blast George Jones and sing along and all get sad together.
“I wouldn’t say that I was setting out to try to write ‘metafiction’ or ‘postmodern’ fiction – although I can’t deny that that’s probably what I wrote. For a long time, I thought that I was writing an impossible book, that the book just wasn’t going to pan out.”
“When you see a cable network idiotically perseverating on a story, even when there’s nothing new to report, it’s because they know that making a story a “monster” is all about narrative momentum. And Hearst absolutely was the one who figured out how to make monsters.”
I had a dream where I was visiting my mother in Connecticut and she said, “Stay the night, stay the night.” …. I realized that this was my impulse when she was sick, to stay the night. In other words, to stave off the night.