If we're a family and your brother wishes you death, it's not a very happy family.

People usually don't allow you to cut off their tongue.

My mother, for example, told the German officer not to kill her. She'd make it worth his while. And then, when they were doing it, she pulled a knife out of her belt and sliced open his chest, just like she used to open chicken breasts to stuff with rice for the Sabbath meal.

My father - I once asked him what was his greatest achievement. He said his greatest achievement was that he fought in five wars in the infantry, always on the front line, and never hurt anybody.

Often in writing programs, articulation and clarity are more important than what you actually say.

Sometimes, when you are in a really constrained situation, it makes you more focused about what you want to say and where you're heading. The most beautiful love poems that were ever written are sonnets, composed in a very constraining form.

My first and biggest love was always fiction writing. But it is a very lonely pastime.