I Came To New York And In

I Think I Write Or Publish As Much As I Do Because I Can Bear Being Without A Book To Work On.

Turned The Wrong Way Around, The Relentless Unforeseen Was What We Schoolchildren Studied In "history", Harmless History, Where Everything Unexpected In Its Own Time Is Chronicled On The Page As Inevitable. The Terror Of The Unforeseen Is What The Science Of History Hides, Turning A Disaster Into An Epic.

For Someone Whose Roots In America Were Strong But Only Inches Deep, And Who Had No Experience, Such As A Catholic Child Might, Of An Awesome Hierarchy That Was Real And Felt, Baseball Was A Kind Of Secular Church That Reached Into Every Class And Region Of The Nation And Bound Millions Upon Millions Of Us Together In Common Concerns, Loyalties, Rituals, Enthusiasms, And Antagonisms. Baseball Made Me Understand What Patriotism Was About, At Its Best.

It's Amazing How Much Punishment We Can Take.

The Fact Remains That Getting People Right Is Not What Living Is All About Anyway. It's Getting Them Wrong That Is Living, Getting Them Wrong And Wrong And Wrong And Then, On Careful Reconsideration, Getting Them Wrong Again. That's How We Know We're Alive: We're Wrong.