You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need to communicate and to connect.

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.

I'm the fortieth ugliest man in this bar. But so what! So what!... Isn't this how people used to fall in love?

I am born hungry. Ravenous. I want to eat the world, and I can never be satiated.

Reading is difficult. People just aren't meant to read anymore. We're in a post-literate age. You know, a visual age. How many years after the fall of Rome did it take for a Dante to appear? Many, many years.

I love to act, I've always wanted to be an actor. I think that acting and fiction go nicely together - being able to visualize language as something you perform, not just something that's there on the page.