I think I went more toward writing because that's my talent. I don't think I was a great performer... And I like being behind the scenes a little bit.
People say, 'Jay, you're a great guy, you just had a couple of bad nights.' People that have themselves under control don't have a couple of bad nights like that. Plain and simple.
That's what I do now: I lead and I teach. If we win basketball games from doing that, then that's great, but I lead and teach. Those are the two things I concentrate on.
I want to be back every year. If I don't go, I want it to be because someone else just was having a great season. I want it to at least be a close call.
The thing is, I don't do these things for recognition, being a good teammate, being a positive member of the community. I do them because those things make me whole and complete.
Lately, I've been listening to some jazz albums. I love the new Pat Metheny album. John Coltrane. I still like good metal, though!
By patting somebody on the back, a boy or a girl, a professional dancer, male, female, it really makes people feel good and I know it certainly made me feel good.
Whether you want to or not, you do serve as a role model. People will always put more faith in baseball players than anyone else.
Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.
I just don't deal with the negativity. I can't get involved in that side of it. I don't understand it, and you can't let it take away from your life and what you are trying to do.
Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.
A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.
People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.
Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.
People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.
You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.
The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.
It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
I blame it on Walt Disney, where animals are given human qualities. People don't understand that a wild animal is not something that is nice to pat. It can seriously harm you.
As I grew up, I became aware that there are people with special needs out there, and I have a real connection with them.
When you take a job, you don't just accept the pats on the back. You have to accept the kicks in the pants.
