“DiMaggio's grace came to represent more than athletic skill in those years. To the men who wrote about the game, it was a talisman, a touchstone, a symbol of the limitless potential of the human individual. That an Italian immigrant, a fisherman's son, could catch fly balls the way Keats wrote poetry or Beethoven wrote sonatas was more than just a popular marvel. It was proof positive that democracy was real. On the baseball diamond, if nowhere else, America was truly a classless society. DiMaggio's grace embodied the democracy of our dreams.”

“DiMaggio's grace came to represent more than athletic skill in those years. To the men who wrote about the game, it was a talisman, a touchstone, a symbol of the limitless potential of the human individual. That an Italian immigrant, a fisherman's son, could catch fly balls the way Keats wrote poetry or Beethoven wrote sonatas was more than just a popular marvel. It was proof positive that democracy was real. On the baseball diamond, if nowhere else, America was truly a classless society. DiMaggio's grace embodied the democracy of our dreams.”

“[On writing:] "There's a great quote by Julius Irving that went, 'Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing t”

“[On writing:] "There's a great quote by Julius Irving that went, 'Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.'", March 25, 2007.)”

“Do you know what the greatest test is? Do you still get excited about what you do when you get up in the morning?”

“he was almost joyously what he had always been, a lot of gee whiz, it was all new and fresh even when surely he had seen much of it before, and it was as if he took delight in not having been changed externally by all that he had seen.”

“Many of these new readers were not yet college-educated, but in terms of their seriousness about the world, their own literacy, and above all their ambitions for their children, they might as well have been.”

“Fresh from the rarefied environments of Harvard, the author says he purposefully took journalism jobs in small southern towns so that he could learn the art of conversation with ordinary people. Is this gift for listening and for conversation, it seems, that allowed him to produce textured historical narratives of grand impact.”

“Being well known for being well-known did not necessarily imply intelligence.”

“It was the kind of country that made you feel better about yourself.”

“You could never prove innocence, not in the match with the man who only had to imply guilt.”

“One successful writer said he would never be a millionaire because he liked living like one too much.”