Author

We judge athletes as if we all don't have trouble performing our various duties from time to time.

When I was studying at the Iowa Writers School, I read a sports writer, Ron Maly, from the Des Moines Register. He was a good sports writer. I became real interested in the contrast between Lute Olson, who was the coach of Iowa at the time, and Ron Maly.

From David Shields

I think of sports writers as mediating between two worlds. Athletes probably think of sports writers as not macho enough. And people in high culture probably think of sports writers as jocks or something. They are in an interestingly complex position in which they have to mediate the world of body and the world of words.

From David Shields

A sports writer is a stylist of some kind. He is trying to convey mood and character and emotion.

From David Shields

A book makes claims of literary art.

From David Shields

I like having a paperback original. And until literature catches up with the culture - the violence, language, syntax, compression, concision, complexity and diversity that the Internet offers - books still make sense.

From David Shields

When it's between the covers of a book, content is perceived to have literary substance - or more so that it might otherwise.

From David Shields

We hunger for connection to a larger community.

From David Shields

The originating sin of America is slavery, for which reparations should be paid and will never be paid; as a result, mini-reparations are paid daily, and the NBA remains, for me, reparations theater.

From David Shields

I think the core of fans' relationship is one that vacillates schizophrenically and mercurially from reverence to resentment. Fans fetishize the players' athletic genius and both deify it and demonize it; witness the way awe turns into anger whenever a player holds out or flips off the offensive coordinator.

From David Shields

David Shields

Notable Quotes

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