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

I rarely return to characters. My characters, at least most of them, are much more a part of that superorganism that is the story than separate and independent creatures.

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

In America, where writers are preoccupied with the craft of writing, I always try to introduce this concept of the badly written good story. Turning the hierarchy around and putting passion on top and not craft, because when you just focus on craft, you can write something that is very sterile.

As a monogamous creature, I feel sometimes that it fills up a function that affairs have in married people's life.

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.

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