I was born at six months, and I weighed 900 grams [less than two pounds]. I have a very heroic birth story.

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.

When I was a kid, I wanted to make my parents happy. I'd always say to them, "What do you want me to do? Do sports? Be rich? Be funny?" My mother would say, "Whatever we want from you, you already gave us - we wanted you to be alive, and you made it."

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

I've always had a very developed superego. I also had a very powerful id, but there was no ego in the middle. So writing was always like letters sent from the id to the superego, saying, "What's going on here?" What I loved about writing was that I was totally weightless. I was amazed at the fact that I could be myself without being afraid that anyone would get hurt.

As a child, I never wanted my parents to be unhappy, which meant that I would always contemplate what would make them happy.

I usually start writing stories from tone and not from content - kind of like people who create music and invent the lyrics later on.