In Bosnian, there's no distinction in literature between fiction and nonfiction; there's no word describing that.

Wherever there's capitalism there's this inclination toward simplicity. There's also a human need to process complicated things by turning them into something else.

One of the many conditions that have to be met for a brain to become a mind, and therefore have consciousness, is 'the analog I' around which all the simultaneous inflow of sensations and stimulations are reflected and organized.

When I was young, I was all about personal sovereignty and that junk, because there was no privacy and the available ideologies were collective, both socialism/communism and nationalism.

Your nightmares follow you like a shadow, forever.

My books have been published all over Europe. They read me there, and I want to read them back. I also spend a lot of time in Europe, often meeting writers, and I'm sick of apologizing for the embarrassing shortage of translations in America.

What you demand from storytelling is a moral - even political - import. I tend to shun that didactic aspect.