Sometimes I write long sentences, all right? Like, super long. And people ask why.

I say why not? Writing is art and we, the makers, are exercising our power to try something technically difficult and cool, like Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Rope” that consists of one continuous shot (okay, they spliced the film when it ran out).

A long sentence isn’t a mistake. It can be done on purpose, and brilliantly. If it works, it won’t be tedious or impossible to follow, even if it digresses all over the place and ends up going from point A to point B to point 3.14159 by way of Omaha.

In fifth grade, as part of something called Junior Great Books, I read the classic short story “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol— translated to English, of course. But the point is this: Gogol and the translator lay out a beauty of a sentence that goes on for pages, constantly making references to itself and how short it is, and it’s hilarious. It’s still the star for which I sometimes reach. A pretty damn good one, as stars go.