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.

When you translate the American writers who are best with dialogue into German - someone like Elmore Leonard, or Tom Wolfe, who's also quite good with dialogue. It's very hard to translate them well.

Usually I work out the plot before I start. This time I thought: Writers always talk about not knowing where a book is going - -I want to experience that, too. What I found out is that it's very interesting, but it takes much longer because you have so many false starts. You take wrong turns and you have to go back and start the whole chapter, or the whole section, from scratch.

People who have experienced nothing love to tell stories while people who have experienced a great deal suddenly have no stories to tell at all.

A neglect of one's sentimental education early in life could bear the most unfortunate fruit.

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.

I'm trying to exploit the bestseller, in a way, but not in the sense of repeating the formula. It's just that the bestseller did so well economically that now I'm freer to do what I want to do, or to try out what I want to try out.