Chad Harbach Quotes & Sayings

“Baseball is a team game but, at the same time, it's a very lonely game: unlike in soccer or basketball, where players roam around, in baseball everyone has their little plot of the field to tend. When the action comes to you, the spotlight is on you but no one can help you.”

“I think people have the wrong idea of 'Moby Dick' as this somber, boring thing.”

“I feel like every time I start up, it's like a truck you have to get into 15th gear, so you very solely crank into that mental space where you feel really immersed in the world of the book and then you can just kind of go. But there's just that few days of frustration to get to that point.”

“Tall people have a real advantage in the world.”

“When I write for 'n+1,' I begin by doing a lot of reading, to try to convince myself I'm not stupid. Then I scribble down a paragraph here, a paragraph there, when a notion strikes. Then I see if I can arrange those notions in a way that yields an argument.”

“I play American football every Saturday, which I find calming.”

“The novel has always been the form that incorporates other forms. For me, it has always been the ultimate medium.”

“There's certainly a large literature around baseball in the U.S.”

“To my parents, writing seemed precarious and not the best idea.”

“You know, it's sort of common wisdom among New York publishers that short story collections don't make money.”