There's no connection between consumption of art and moral stamina at all.

Even if you tried to extinguish your personality, what is left in the story will reflect it, perhaps by its negation. Our lives provide the bricks from which we build these cathedrals.

Memoir implies the need to reveal something about yourself - to recount your life for educational purposes.

I'm bright, but there are lots of bright writers and people everywhere. In no way, at no point do I think I'm better than them.

When I came to America, I was already a writer, already published in Bosnia. I was planning to go back, but I had no choice but to stay here after the civil war, so I enrolled at Northwestern in a master's program and studied American literature.

I spotted a can in the corner whose red label read SADNESS. Was there so much of it they could can it and sell it? A bolt of pain went through my intestines before I realized that it was not SADNESS but SARDINES.

The beauty of literature - also its limit - is that it is inescapably personal, even if you're writing science fiction.