I tend to boycott all teenage reading while I'm trying to write my own stuff.

I don't really see any barrier between teenage fiction and adult literature.

I never knew that Americans would take up soccer, and it's a gender-free sport in high school there.

Disconnection or alienation from the past has political consequences.

Most people would say safety was my best position. To me, the biggest challenge and most gratifying thing I got out of playing football was playing corner, because it was a bigger challenge than playing safety. Playing corner provided me my biggest thrills and my biggest headaches.

Mizzou was my real family. I loved it. Football was a sense of home. A home I never had.

Well 'Monday Night Football,' I think the players kind of like it because they like the attention, and it's a lot of attention. But on the other hand, it's a disruption of the routine we used to have to play on Monday night. If you're a player, you sit around all day waiting for a game. It's different than when you play at noon.

I was captain of the soccer and basketball teams in high school, and I was the equivalent of class president.