He Had Learned The Worst Lesson That

How Can One Say, 'no, This Isn't A Part Of Life,' Since It Always Is? The Contaminant Of Sex, The Redeeming Corruption That De-idealizes The Species And Keeps Us Everlastingly Mindful Of The Matter We Are.

It's Amazing How Much Punishment We Can Take.

We Live In An Age In Which The Imagination Of The Novelist Is Helpless Against What He Knows He Is Going To Read In Tomorrow's Newspaper.

I Am Marked Like A Road Map From Head To Toe With My Repressions. You Can Travel The Length And Breadth Of My Body Over Superhighways Of Shame And Inhibition And Fear.

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.