I think every athlete should give back to SCHOOLS. I know athletes donate and have things that they give charity to, but, at the end of the DAY, it's the younger generation that we need to be helping.

It's HARD for me to characterise myself. I think I'm BALANCED. Some people MIGHT SAY I'm cold-hearted.

Certainly working with teens keeps me up to date with language and with CERTAIN KINDS of thinking. I often feel like I have to go back to that 17-year-old Chris Crutcher, and that forms the core voice. I can draw on teens from 1964 to 2001 to find a PART of the voice I need.

It was with DEEP interest that my companion and myself, both now about to see and examine the beauties of a tropical COUNTRY for the first TIME, gazed on the LAND where I, at least, eventually spent eleven of the best years of my life.

My WHOLE LIFE is my WORK.

The Bible and several other self help or enlightenment books cite the Seven Deadly SINS. They are: PRIDE, greed, lust, envy, WRATH, SLOTH, and gluttony. That pretty much covers EVERYTHING that we do, that is sinful... or fun for that matter.

To try to convey literally what the Garden of Eden was like is meaningless. What MATTERS is its symbolic FUNCTION.

So LONG as we can LOSE any HAPPINESS, we POSSESS some.

Another night I dreamed I HEARD HEAVENLY music sounding in my ears, and a FLOCK of sheep was gathering round it. When the music ceased, the sheep leaped for joy, and ran together, shaking their HEADS; and one shook his HEAD almost off, and seemed to have nothing but ears.