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

His whole body was completely still, except the wings, which were still fluttering a little, like when someone dies. That's when he finally understood that of all the things the angel had told him, nothing was true. That he wasn't even an angel, just a liar with wings.

Etgar means "challenge." And my family name is Keret, which means "urban." So my name is "urban challenge." My joke is, it's a good description of a birth but a strange name for a human being.

I think living in Israel and wanting to change reality is the best prescription for never-ending writer's block.

I think that any authentic feeling one has of life should be a feeling of defeat. It's a losing game. You're going to die. Civilization is going to end. Our society is in decline, and we should feel OK about it because Roman society was in decline and before it the Assyrian one was, and they disappeared off this earth and we will disappear too.

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

Writing is very castrating in the moment. Fiction in general, it has no function, nobody asks for it.