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.

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

I wish I could avoid the people who have threatened me. My favorite threat is that I will be thrown in the River Miljacka, which is at most knee-deep, with my feet bound in cement.

I'm not nervous if I think about something for nine years and then I don't write it. Even if it fades it doesn't concern me. It'll come back if it's worth it.

Despite 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.

Memory narrativises itself.

I cannot think of a country in which I would be happy with the government and dominant ideology and available propaganda.