Death used to announce itself in the thick of life but now people drag on so long it sometimes seems that we are reaching the stage when we may have to announce ourselves to death. It is as though one needs a special strength to die and not a final weakness.

The only reason I would stay away from a period piece is because sometimes the women are painted in a very stereotypical weakling wallflower way - that's something I don't want to do. I want to show strength in the women I play and a journey of some sort.

And when I look at my mother I reflect on her strength and endurance. She's cranky sometimes but she is lovable and loving. I'd be happy to be there at 86.

Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.

Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness yet perhaps few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go.

I don't read a lot of the sports because I think people sometimes either build it up or you have this guy that hates sports that is going to write bad about it so I figure I'm not going to read it. Because I'm not going to let him put an idea into my head.

I did all the right things in so many tournaments. But like I said sometimes in sports it just goes the other way. Maybe you've already won so much that it evens it out a bit sometimes. I don't know.

I find interesting characters or lessons that resonate with people and sometimes I write about them in the sports pages sometimes I write them in a column sometimes in a novel sometimes a play or sometimes in nonfiction. But at the core I always say to myself 'Is there a story here? Is this something people want to read?'

I think sometimes when it comes to sports and especially relationships between players and coaches that people lose track lose a sense of reality.