Quotes from Mary Pilon

Even as Instagram defines our visual moment, we use the app's filters to travel backwards in time, to make our images resemble the Polaroids of yore by casting them literally in a different, more nostalgic light.

Much like film, authors spend a fair amount of time alone in the creative process, tossing their work out into what can feel like an abyss, void of real people.

Something amazing happens when you tell people you write about sports for a living. You begin to feel like you're in a scene from 'Dawn of the Dead.' The way people change when talking about 'their team' can be nothing short of zombiefication.

In a culture obsessed with happiness, Americans may not be allowing for acceptance that it's OK to sometimes not be perky.

Precisely at the moment when an athletic career is most on the line and fan perceptions of a Herculean, supra-human performance are highest, an athlete's brain may be at its most vulnerable.

Once you let go of the idea of waiting for a magical lightning bolt of genius to hit, you can really get to work.

Ultimately, the joy of sports is social and psychological, both in the ballpark and around a television on Super Bowl Sunday.

As a journalist and longtime photographer, I love Instagram and the connection it gives me to my friends and family as I journey afar or for me to view their lives from my perch back home.

In the modern road-running era, digital photography has intersected with weekend-warrior culture, creating a golden age of social-media humblebragging. For some, the marathon course is sacred ground. For others, it's a personal movie set.

Individual participation in the stock market through 401(k)s helped fuel the go-go days of Wall Street in the 1980s and birthed asset management juggernauts like Fidelity, Vanguard, Pimco, BlackRock, and dozens of others.

Wall Street trading floors have long been seen as bastions of testosterone that rewarded, literally, those with sharp elbows who could throw a punch.

Some Americans, like those working in government or nonprofits, know the consequences of having their salaries public.

There are good reasons for not wanting to host the Olympics. The Games can be costly and, in spite of their patriotic overtones, can unintentionally expose a nation's weaknesses to the world.

For years, women in India were largely discouraged from participating in high-level sports - and, unless the women were wealthy, good facilities were hard to come by, anyway.

As the 19th century teetered into the 20th, the clank of typewriter keys went from solo to symphony. They were the weapon of choice for professional writers, the business elite, people with things to say and the need to say them quickly.

Typically, if a politician makes immigration an issue, it's because of the belief that immigrants are taking jobs from Americans.

If bingeing on bad emergency-room-themed television has taught me anything, it's that crisis situations bring out the best and worst in people.

Trucking is the backbone of U.S. commerce. Consumers rely on the industry to move the parts for their cars, the food for their dinner tables, and, increasingly, the goods they order online.

Competing in junior fencing requires lessons, equipment, and travel that may cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month, keeping talented athletes from wielding sabers or masks.

It's not uncommon for some Khmer boxers to fight with dangerous frequency, sometimes as often as weekly or bi-weekly, getting up to three hundred or more fights in a career, with the length of a career varying from fighter to fighter, some engaging in bouts far past their prime.

I was an ambidextrous child, and the symmetry of roller skating was a welcome respite from my awkwardness with physical activities that involved a ball or a racket.

Yachting may call to mind champagne flutes and seersucker, but danger and risk have always been a part of the America's Cup.

The phenomena of taking photos and sharing them isn't new, but with Instagram being mobile, both have become cheaper and faster, producing the instant gratification of knowing how our shots look in our palms.

Sports like sailing, rowing, and bobsled have long vexed spectators and television producers.