Usually the German translators do something terrible, especially with Tom Wolfe, which is that they make it local. So if the characters are from Harlem, the translators put all this Berlin slang into their mouths, and that's just terrible. You cringe when you read that. But there really is no good solution to the problem, except learning English.

Also, whenever you have direct speech, and I don't quite know why, but it always gets better in English. Dialogue, the flow of dialogue, English just has a better way with it.

Exactly as we might ask God, and do ask God, to change our fate. The difference is that in the story the writer actually replies and in the end even changes his mind.

One of the points where the art world is at its most metaphysical is in this weird aspect of the power of the expert. There are experts who claim they cannot be fooled because they have an inner connection to an artist and can feel whether something is genuine or fake. I've heard experts say, on panels: When it comes to my period, or my painters, I cannot be fooled. And of course that's completely ridiculous.

German can take a lot more pathos than English can. When you say "pathetic" in English it's a disparaging term, but when you say "pathetisch" in German it's just a description, not necessarily negative. That says a lot already.

When I write a book I'm always questioning the project as a whole. I always feel I might have to just throw it away and forget about it, and I've done that with novels I've started and worked on for a long time. It's an option I need in order to write freely.

For a while I never show anybody what I'm writing, and during that time I need the feeling that publishing is only an option. I might publish this, I might not. I think if I had to publish it, I might panic.