When you write a book, you want to have fidelity to the character. Characters and their emotions guide the structure of the novel. The author is aware that there's a certain amount of information she/he has to provide in order to satisfy the reader, knowing that she/he has set something up that must be paid off, but this payment must be made while maintaining fidelity to the characters.

People everywhere feel differently at different times of their lives.

There are books where you can really see the moral question, which I think we answer every day for ourselves, in every interaction we have with people, to a lesser or greater degree.

We are taught that we can be better than we are. But is there a limit to how good we can be?

I think ex-Soviet or Russian-Jewish women are tougher and that comes through. And if they are more pragmatic than the men, it's because they are obliged to be. They have all the female responsibilities and all the male responsibilities.

Nothing is easy in writing. I don't think for anyone. But dialogue is probably what comes most naturally to me.

We all have some ideological quotient in ourselves. And I think it does guide who we are.