Bill James on why he writes

Every form of strength is also a form of weakness….Pretty girls tend to become insufferable because, being pretty, their faults are too much tolerated. Possessions entrap men, and wealth paralyzes them. I learned to write because I am one of those people who somehow cannot manage the common communication of smiles and gestures, but must use words to get across things that other people would never need to say.

—Bill James, quoted by Michael Lewis in Moneyball