All the lives I could live, all the people I will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is all that the world is.
Aleksandar HemonWe apply the language that is comforting and comfortable and familiar in order to grasp that which confuses and scares us. That is the first step toward clichรฉ and stereotype, as they're comforting devices. They reduce the confusing world to the already familiar. We're always smoothing out the bumps of actual living to turn it into narratable life.
Aleksandar HemonDespite all that I know rationally, and everything that I can put into words, I can say that I have difficulty giving up the notion of the nobility of art.
Aleksandar HemonEurope is a rapidly changing place, on every level. Immigration, post-communist transitions, the unification, steady presence of war and conflict, the inescapable challenges to the notion of national literature/culture-it all exerts pressure upon writers who must be aware of the transformational possibilities of the situation.
Aleksandar Hemon