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.

I have always thought that Heaven is a place for people who had had a good life, but that is not true. God is merciful and way too good to make it so. The Heaven is just a place for people who could not be really happy while living on Earth. I was once told that people who commit suicide are taken back on Earth to repeat life from the very beginning because if they did not like it once, it did not mean they would not like it the next time. But those who did not fit in on Earth at all, ended up here. Everyone comes to Heaven in their own way.

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 Israel, the role of the writer is dictated by the language in which you write. Writers see themselves as cultural prophets.

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.

Writing a story is kind of like surfing, as opposed to the novel, where you use a GPS to get somewhere. With surfing, you kind of jump.

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