Tacked above my desk are photos of artists I admire - Hopper, Sargent, Twain - and postcards from beloved bookstores where I've spent all my time and money - Tattered Cover, Elliot Bay, Harvard Bookstore.

Jake went in, aware that he had, for the first time in three weeks, opened a door without hoping madly to find another world on the other side. A bell jingled overhead. The mild, spicy smell of old books hit him, and the smell was somehow like coming home.

There's that old journalism rule that sunshine is the great disinfectant - which is how reporters bust their way into meetings and such all the time. In sports, I really think winning is the great disinfectant.

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

Like the Earth, the Web is a less appealing place than it used to be. If I want attitude and arguing and meanness and profanity and wrong information screamed at me as gospel, I'll get in a time machine and spend Christmas with my family in 1977.

The worst thing you can do is make money at the expense of losing your time.