In my stories I can kiss the girls I want to kiss and punch the girls I want to punch. Nobody pays a price for it.

Most of the Jewish writer friends I have are American, and I feel closer to them because they're always obsessed with one issue - identity: what does it mean to be an American Jew?

All my writing-life people kept telling me that I should stop writing short stories and start writing novels: my agent, my Israeli publisher, my foreign ones, my bank manager - they all felt and keep feeling that I'm doing something wrong here.

The best stories you usually hear are stories that people feel some type of urgency about.

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

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

I never know the endings when I write. It's a turnoff when you know the ending. You lose much of your incentive to write when you already know. It's like seeing a movie a second time.