Whatever solidarity I have established with other writers individually, it is usually organized around books. We connected as readers, as it were, not writers.

New York is the Hollywood of the publishing industry, complete with stars, starlets, suicidal publishers/producers, intrigues, and a lot of money.

To write has to be related to a drive inside.

I don't know the numbers, but roughly half of the people who came through Ellis Island returned home. They came here to make money, not to make history.

Arabs are a complete abstraction in the propaganda world and all the death and destruction is completely unreal to Americans.

There's no bad writing; you did something. I was operating inside language, and I did something. I'm not ashamed of it.

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