Only people who live outside cities realize the size of them. London turns out to be huge; there are great swaths, vast panoramas, a whole diaspora I'd never imagined. The place I live in tends to be manageably small, a few familiar journeys and destinations.
In a time of crisis, there is rational tendency to turn to the writer.
I developed a mania for Fitzgerald - by the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read everything he'd written. I started with 'The Great Gatsby' and moved on to 'Tender Is the Night,' which just swept me away. Then I read 'This Side of Paradise,' his novel about Princeton - I literally slept with that book under my pillow for two years.
I've been a video game guy since I was eight years old and got my first Nintendo. I've been addicted to video games ever since.
The National guys will tell you the same thing - I tend to work until the last possible minute.
I think women can be as cruel as men, and men as tender as women, and vice versa.
If we're talking about masculinity and tenderness, I don't look at Clinton.
I find when I'm more awake, I tend to think more of the structure and movement of a tune, abrupt transitions, etc.; things becoming more composed.
The trouble with progress is that it tends to happen slowly and quietly. It's not necessarily going to shout about itself, or make the nightly news like a disaster or a scandal would.
My downtime tends to resemble my uptime. Weekends are workdays, but toned down. Over the whole weekend, I may have five meetings, as opposed to six on a weekday. I used to play piano for 30 minutes at night, but I had to pull that out of my schedule. I don't have time for nonwork stuff.
