One of the goals of analysis is you become your own analyst. You continue the process even if you're not in therapy, whether you continue the process by walking down the street thinking about things or whether you continue the process, as I do, by writing about them.

A lot of the ways of advertising a book - the cover, whether somebody sees it on a subway or sees it in a bookstore - those things are going to rapidly diminish as we move to an electronic model.

I write five, six days a week. The thing is capturing the voice. I feel like I've been perfecting one voice - in different iterations, sure, but the Russian-ness has always been the undercurrent.

I was really not a good student, and I felt that shame every day. That's one of the reasons I started smoking pot and drinking daily.

Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.

If I still lived in Russia, I'd be dead... or a really effective oligarch.

I just want fiction to remain a vital force for entertainment and not just for contemplation. Both things can exist.