The place of my novels is Israel, almost without exception. All of them take place in Israel - in Jerusalem, in the desert, in the kibbutz, in small towns, in villages.

Israel is a fulfilled dream. Nothing that exists here existed here a hundred years ago.

The dreams and the visions of the Israeli founding fathers, these were very very ambitious dreams. They were world reformers. They wanted to create a new and improved kind of humanity, or at least, a new and improved Jewish society, a new and improved Jewish individual human being here. The whole Zionist project was based on a whole spectrum of different and even conflicting dreams and visions.

Literature may make the reader reexamine some of his or her own conventions, look at himself or herself in a different way, look at others in a different way. This goes way beyond just making statements or manifesting principles.

Literature belongs first and foremost to the language in which it is being written. The very same book, even if it is translated very accurately, let's say from Hebrew into English or from English into Hebrew, becomes a different book because language is a musical instrument.

I find the family the most mysterious and fascinating institution in the world.

I prefer to talk about the gift of literature rather than its role or task.