There has to be a kind of grassroots push, a movement, as it were, against the inherent isolationism of American capitalism as practiced in the publishing industry. There need to be grants and government support and a few publishers, mainstream and independent, who are not afraid to challenge American readership. We need to build a network of translators, publishers and readers. We hope that our annual anthology might provide an upsurge in interest for European fiction and then, as we publish it every year, become a habit to many readers.

You devise ways to tell a story that complies with your sensibility. Style and method are really extensions of your present sensibility.

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.

Projecting yourself until everything is talking about you is, of course, a self-flattering form of self-pity

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?

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

I don't think that everyone should have a philosophical answer to any given question. There are things that need to be done.