People in Israel would write in a high register, they wouldn't write colloquial speech. I do a special take on colloquial speech. When I started writing, I thought [the language] was telling the story of this country: old people in a young nation, very religious, very conservative, very tight-assed, but also very anarchistic, very open-minded. It's all in the language, and that's one thing that doesn't translate.

Hebrew was frozen, like frozen peas, fresh out of the Bible.

If you scare somebody enough, they stop being rational.

It's funny, but I think my stories - the good ones - they're much smarter than I am.

Sometimes the stories are smarter than me, and suddenly these things start to make sense.

I don't like the expression "writer's block" because I think it presupposes that you have a problem with your plumbing. I really think it's the other way around.

According to Gur's theory of boredom, everything that happens in the world today is because of boredom: love, war, inventions, fake fireplaces - ninety-five percent of all that is pure boredom.