For guys playing sports at a high level, for money, I can't put my finger on it, but in a man's world of sport, there is something visceral to beating another man. ↗
My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore except in my memory and my imagination. ↗
My dad had this rock hard body and would work 12- to 13-hour days. The guys he worked with were scrap-iron guys. Nobody on that road crew had read a book in 10 years, but there was something about the way they lived I really admired. ↗
You have to be young to be able to do things like that. Now I'm more cautious. I'm proud that I was able to do what I did - psychologically it was a great wall to climb - but sometimes I regret it. ↗