When I found myself in the U.S., and the war was at full swing in Bosnia, I read for survival - it was a means of thought resuscitation.

I much preferred winning to thinking and I didn't like losing at all.

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

When I look at my old pictures, all I can see is what I used to be but am no longer. I think: What I can see is what I am not.

There are studies that have shown that we make decisions, ethical and otherwise, based on the way we imagine ourselves as characters in the stories of our lives. In other words, if we imagine ourselves brave or crazy or open, we're more likely to make decisions in a given situation based on how we imagine ourselves, whatever the facts may be.

I think about the story while I think about other things. This is an important part of the process: I look at it sideways. If I look straight at it, it produces nothing other than what seem like complicated, brilliant designs that fall apart the following morning. In some way stories mature when you're not looking.

I don't believe in inspiration. I write when I can't avoid writing anymore.