He misses the feeling of creating something out of something. Thatโs right โ something out of something. Because something out of nothing is when you make something up out of thin air, in which case it has no value. Anybody can do that. But something out of something means it was really there the whole time, inside you, and you discover it as part of something new, thatโs never happened before.
Etgar KeretFor me taking a pragmatic decision when it comes to art is almost an oxymoron. The reason I first picked up a pen and wrote a story had nothing pragmatic in it.
Etgar KeretPeople in Israel would write in a high register, they wouldn't write colloquial speech. I do a special take on colloquial speech. When I started writing, I thought [the language] was telling the story of this country: old people in a young nation, very religious, very conservative, very tight-assed, but also very anarchistic, very open-minded. It's all in the language, and that's one thing that doesn't translate.
Etgar Keret