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.

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

If the fidelity [ in a book] isn't maintained, the reader will think your structure is extraneous, or superficial, or that you're trying to curry favor, or live up to the expectations of some sort of genre or structure.

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

There are different types of readers. People draw lines at which three things intersect: the character, the author, and the reader.

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

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