Rabbits are played. Nowadays it's all about the turtles. Tell them it's a ninja, they'll freak.

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

As the son of Holocaust survivors, this is life - you're put in a corner, and you have to get out. I believe that you can always get out.

In the last war, people became vocal from the right-wing point of view: if you're liberal, then you're a traitor.

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.

It's kind of a reflex for me to ignore my own wishes and think about other people first.

I have to admit that talking authoritatively about my students' stories can make me feel, at times, like an astronaut who has just landed on a new planet and insists on giving guided tours to its inhabitants.