When writing dialogue, I hear it in both Russian and English, and try to find a language that combines the two.

I think every book is a reaction to everything you're written before, and most immediately to the book you wrote just before.

Some is, I think, the personal in any act of writing. You find yourself caught up: you start a sentence, and it becomes revelatory, not just of the character, but of you as well.

I believe I'm very conscious of exactly what I'm doing. I'm auditioning lines of dialogue, and I'm interrogating whether the lines would translate from Russian into English the right way. The English that results can perhaps seem somewhat more formal than colloquial, but not so formal as to feel academic.

I think there are differences between men and women. There is more of a softness to women than there is to men, especially when it comes to those more intimate emotions: feeling love, feeling familial connections.

I think even with women who come across with a tough exterior, the interior is the same. I think you'll find this with women around the word: some women, because of their circumstances, are forced to be tougher, forced to cultivate tougher exteriors.

Why are some people highly principled and willing to do anything for their principles, while most of us are not? And I am willing to not only ask, but also answer the question.