The heroes of our youth grow old - 'the boys of summer in their ruin', in Dylan Thomas's verse - yet we seem the same.

Pursuing employment or climatic relief, we live in voluntary exile from our extended families and our longer past, but in an involuntary exile from ourselves and our own past.

More fundamentally, it is a dream that does not die with the onset of manhood: the dream is to play endlessly, past the time when you are called home for dinner, past the time of doing chores, past the time when your body betrays you past time itself.

We know these men are professionals whose services are up for bid and whose bags are packed, and yet we call them our own and take personal, even civic pride in their accomplishments.

A vote for Japan is a vote for the future of rugby. We will do our best to make rugby a global sport.

I think it would've been a little easier if I grew up in America; they've got better conditions for basketball players. At the same time, many people have said to me that having to start playing so late helped me not pick up bad habits.

Tennis is not like other sports where the coach is hired by an independent entity, and that makes a huge difference in the dynamic.

Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.