So the fact that there's someone who's planning what happens to the characters, writing it down, means that the characters always have a fate. And when we think about fate, we tend think of it as the thing we would have if we were literary characters, that is, if there were somebody out there, writing us.

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.

English has a better way with colloquialisms. It has colloquialisms that are colorful and expressive but not too heavy or distracting. In German, if you use colloquialisms, it quickly descends into some kind of dialect literature.

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.

I think I can work anywhere, but you don't get the same kind of inspiration everywhere. New York theater has become a big inspiration for me. I only started writing for the stage myself because I like to see the good, mostly off-Broadway plays in New York.

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.

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.