A particular piece of music attaches itself to the piece I'm writing, and there is nothing else I can listen to. Every day I return to the same space to write, the music providing both the walls and the pictures on the walls.
Aleksandar HemonIn Bosnian, there's no distinction in literature between fiction and nonfiction; there's no word describing that.
Aleksandar HemonThe beauty of literature - also its limit - is that it is inescapably personal, even if you're writing science fiction.
Aleksandar HemonI cannot stand that whole game of confession, that is: Here I have sinned, now I'm confessing my sins, and describing my path of sin and then in the act of confession I beg for your forgiveness and redemption.
Aleksandar HemonIt's difficult for me to understand how it was possible to live under the Bush regime for eight years and then just roll over and do other things.
Aleksandar HemonThere's a social and human necessity for some kind of continuity, but it's not axiomatic and not something you're born into; it's something you have to work at. And one of the ways to work at it - perhaps the best - is storytelling: telling stories about yourself to others, telling stories about yourself to yourself, telling stories about others to others.
Aleksandar Hemon