Every writer owes something to a particular tradition he/she grew up in. But no serious writer - other than the militantly nationalist ones - would reduce his/her domain of influence to a single tradition. Furthermore, historical breaks are so common and large in Europe that there are ruptures in every tradition which then connect the same generations across national borders. Younger Eastern European writers, for instance, have more in common with other writers of the same age in Europe, than with the previous, communist-era generations in their own countries.

It's difficult for me to understand how it was possible to live under the Bush regime for eight years and then just roll over and do other things.

When I was in high school, I was in a special math class. I was infatuated with physics, particularly nuclear physics, Einstein, and the Big Bang. I read a lot about black holes. And partly because I'm so lazy I thought you could do all this just by looking at the sky and thinking up universes. It didn't seem like hard work when I was a kid, so I enrolled in this class.

I started appreciating and valuing different things. Some things just became insufferable to me, and not just literature. I used to like horror movies and now I couldn't stand them.

God knows our despair. God wants His chosen people to live in peace. God loves life, cares less about death. We need to live. I want to live, I want my children to live. Everyone I know wants to live. You have to ask yourself what is more important to you, life is death. What is this world about - life or death?

I don't like having a teaching job - office hours and conferences and committees and bosses and all that - but I tend to enjoy teaching, and I design the course in such a way that there'll be pleasure in that.

I gradually became aware that my interiority was inseparable from my exteriority, that the geography of my city was the geography of my soul.