The Human Condition being, basically, that we’re alive and have access to beauty, can even erratically create it, but will someday be dead and will not. Chad Harbach More Quotes by Chad Harbach More Quotes From Chad Harbach I play American football every Saturday, which I find calming. Chad Harbach calming play football ... people loved to suffer, as long as the suffering made sense. Everybody suffered. The key was to choose the form of your suffering. Chad Harbach keys long people Writing on a computer feels like a recipe for writer's block. I can type so fast that I run out of thoughts, and then I sit there and look at the words on the screen, and move them around, and never get anywhere. Whereas in a notebook I just keep plodding along, slowly, accumulating sentences, sometimes even surprising myself. Chad Harbach notebook block running Every dude in your high school wasn't striving to be the best poet because then he'd get all the girls, right? But you could imagine a society in which that were the case. Chad Harbach striving-to-be-the-best girl school Tall people have a real advantage in the world. Chad Harbach real people world Somehow, you can achieve a directness in the novel that you can't get anywhere else. Chad Harbach achieve novel Fiction and nonfiction, for me, involve very different processes. Chad Harbach different process fiction I think the MFA programs have had a real effect on the state of American fiction, but I don't think it's a question of "this is written by someone with an MFA, and this isn't." I challenge anyone to identify a book in that way. It's totally impossible. Chad Harbach real book thinking It remained an open question, how much sympathy love could stand. Chad Harbach But people didn't forgive you for doing what felt right-that was the last thing they forgave you for. Chad Harbach forgiveness forgiving people There are three stages: Thoughtless being. Thought. Return to thoughtless being. Chad Harbach stage return three Poetry might be more about the eternal verities, the essence of the human soul, and - although it's reductive to say so - fiction has perhaps been more about the differences between the unconstrained world of the imagination and the realities you run into, day-to-day, when you're riding your donkey. Chad Harbach differences running reality In fact, theres a lot to legitimately hate about pro sports and the way they are conducted. Chad Harbach hate sports way Most great books have been about striving in some sense. In a sense, money is the great topic of the novel. You couldn't necessarily say that about poetry. Chad Harbach topics strive book For me, the process always has to be pretty intense. I could never write just two or three days a week. It had to be every day. Chad Harbach three writing two 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. Chad Harbach gears space book Another older writer that had a huge influence on me is Chekhov. More contemporarily, it's hard to say. Chad Harbach chekhov influence huge I do think that sports is really rich dramatically that, and this is kind of a self-serving thing to say, but I wonder why there aren't more, better sports novels. Chad Harbach self sports thinking My favorite sports novel is End Zone by Delillo. It's such a great looking book too, the black cover with the football player on it. It's just a fantastic little book. Chad Harbach football sports book I think that it is very interesting to write about a team because a team is a group of people who work in very close quarters and have very intense relationships so - in my days of playing sports, I was very rarely on a team that did not have it's own peculiar dynamic, and you wind up having very intense feelings for good and for bad about these people with whom you spend many hours a day. Chad Harbach team writing sports