If the scene bores you when you read it, rest assured it WILL bore the actors, and will then bore the audience, and we're all going to be back in the breadline.

It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.

I used to think I'd like to be a fireman - in fact, I still would - and the only drawback I could see was coming back to the firehouse, after a day of fighting fires, and still having to put in an eight-hour day writing.

Our job, as writers is to do our jobs.

Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt that never comes due.

Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.

Writing a novel is an incredibly free experience. One puts one's self in a narrative mode. You can go off in any direction - the past, the future, or go laterally, or include one's own beliefs. It's total freedom.