“Earlier in this century someone claimed that we work at our play and play at our work. Today the confusion has deepened: we worship our work, work at our play, and play in our worship.”

“We play at believing ourselves imortal. We delude oursleves in the appraisal of our own works and in our perpetual misappraisal of the works of others. See you at the Nobel, writers say, as one might say: see you in hell.”

“There is work that is work and there is play that is play; there is play that is work and work that is play. And in only one of these lies happiness.”

“Sometimes things don't work out the way we want them to. Life was full of truths that don't play out in romance novels. Sometimes we don't get our happily ever after.”

“If we do not live where we work and when we work we are wasting our lives and our work too.”

“It was like when we were little kids and we played games on the ivy-covered hillside in the backyard. We were warriors and wizards and angels and high elves and that was our reality. If someone said, Isn’t it cute, look at them playing, we would have smiled back, humoring them, but it wasn’t playing. It was transformation. It was our own world. Our own rules.”