You don't always make an out. Sometimes the pitcher gets you out.

The three-thousand hitting thing was the first time I let individual pressure get to me. I was uptight about it. When I saw the hit going through, I had a sigh of relief more than anything.

I was a lousy hitter in May doing the same things that made me a great hitter in June.

This is a strange game.

I think about baseball when I wake up in the morning. I think about it all day and I dream about it at night. The only time I don't think about it is when I'm playing it.

You don't always make an out. Sometimes the pitcher gets you out.

And if I have my choice between a pennant and a triple crown, I'll take the pennant every time.

I was lucky enough to have the talent to play baseball. That's how I treated my career. I didn't think I was anybody special, anybody different.

When they knock you down, you not only have to get up, but you have to make it clear that you won't be knocked down a second time.

I really do not make deals.

We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.

'Down on Me' can't showcase my true talent. 'Birthday Sex' was robotic. When I perform it, I can't give you this church feeling I know I can give.

I've never been obsessed by how I looked. In fact, I would rather have looked more ordinary so I could play more parts more truthfully.

I was kind of a strange child. My parents knew early on that something must have been wrong with me. I crawled backwards until I was two, but had Kennedy's inaugural address memorized by the time I was six.

I didn't want the headache of having a publisher reviewing everything I wrote in advance.

Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks.

I love working back home, but it is a small country, and we do get tired of watching each other.

Why are pencils equipped with erasers if not to correct mistakes?

My parents were immigrants.

I think it is immensely difficult to get the U.S. interested in non-U.S. topics. I don't think this is because the average American reader is disinterested, but more because of publishers playing it safe: if a thriller based in L.A. is a sure winner, why spend money plugging one based in Paris - or Bangkok?

During war, the laws are silent.

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.

Hockeys a funny game. You have to prove yourself every shift every game. Its not up to anybody else. You have to take pride in yourself.

Lifes enchanted cup sparkles near the brim.

I've always enjoyed film, but I'm a little afraid of it because I think it is very powerful as a medium. You have the visuals, the sound, the colors, all of these things coming at you, and they transport you physically so it becomes this surround sound, virtual reality.

The ideal man takes joy in doing favors for others.

In a society where the rights and potential of women are constrained, no man can be truly free. He may have power, but he will not have freedom.

All musicians practice ear training constantly, whether or not they are cognizant of it. If, when listening to a piece of music, a musician is envisioning how to play it or is trying to play along, that musician is using his or her 'ear' - the understanding and recognition of musical elements - for guidance.

Shame is something you'll find a lot of - particularly Catholic - girls feel about their bodies, about their sexuality, about their diet, about anything you like. Shame is the way you keep them down. That's the way to crush a girl.

I learned that you don't have to be all over the place, that you can be subtle and you can say what you say. The words that you put together can be just as hilarious as falling all over the place or doing something.

Embrace your suffering tenderly.

The difficulty of writing a second novel is directly proportional to how successful the first novel was, it seems.

Government has a legitimate sphere of operation. The problem arises when that sphere continually expands, encompassing areas where government lacks legitimacy.