“Life versus Death, the absolute randomness of one’s position, privilege, and place, the lot one draws, and so on. It has made previously suspicious-seeming clichés seem more tolerable.”

I think something many of us grapple with are those times we dread the practice of writing, no matter the project.

Love may not be all you need, but it is certainly a necessity. My desire to survive has been exponentially magnified by the fact that there is someone intimately tangled up in me who would be left alone with the world.

Me and my wife were interested in avoiding style, in eliminating voice, in getting away from the poetry logics, textures, and propulsions that we normally employ in our writing. But we arrived at even this organically and separately.

The illness has only made certain ambivalences I’d always been conscious of that much more acute.

Suddenly we had become these people who didn’t drink anything but kale, who ended many of our conversations with tears, and for whom no future was guaranteed. It was kind of funny.

Me and my wife had somehow finally reached a moment in which our lives made sense, in which we were comfortable in certain material ways, and in that very moment we were faced with a medical situation that could only really be resolved with death or time.

Women are in a position now to voice their opinion. Women are getting empowered. The more power they get, the more voice they get to shift certain things around. Now I have a daughter, I understand. When I didn’t have a daughter, I didn’t understand.

Refusal to believe until proof is given is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is absurd.

Rahul Gandhi does not know Indian culture, so when he went to offer prayers at Kashi Vishwanath temple, he sat in a position as if he was offering namaaz.

I can play in the 11 positions because a good player can play anywhere on the pitch.

In 2009, I didn’t like that Yamaha signed such a young and competitive teammate [Jorge Lorenzo]. But now everything is different. We are more mature. Everyone knows his role and position. Things are clear.

…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.

If you are complaining about things in your life, you are on the complaining frequency, and you are not in a position to attract what you want. Get on to the frequency of good with your thoughts and words. Firstly you will feel good, and secondly you will be on the frequency of receiving more good.

Music was my way of keeping people from looking through and around me. I wanted the heavies to know I was around.