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.

During the war, there were people wishing me death, wishing my son death, wishing my wife death in very graphic ways. In the past, I would go overseas and I would say, "Israel is like my family: we disagree, but we're all brothers." I can't say that anymore, because life proves me wrong.

The amazing thing about an artistic collaboration is that it is as intense and intimate as a romantic one. Sometimes even more so.

I really believe hatred is not a primal emotion, in that you can't find it in nature. It's basically some kind of distortion of fear.

I think that becoming a parent kind of made me try to be more responsible. And it made me much more stressful.

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.

I write what needs to be written the way that seems genuinely right. If what comes out of it are stories, then it is my vocation to believe in them and in the fact that they'll interest people and maybe affect their lives.