We're people of the Orient. We know everything. And what we don't know, we can sense.

Life for young American college graduates is a festive affair. Free of having to support their families, they mostly have gay parties on rooftops where they reflect at length upon their quirky electronic childhoods and sometimes kiss each other on the lips and neck.

That's what I always liked about science fiction - you can make the world end. Humour is my multiple warhead delivery system.

A writer or any suffering artist-to-be is just an instrument too finely set to the human condition [...]

All of my books have an element of a man who is in love with somebody and needs them desperately, not just for procreation but for being able to fully unbosom himself. He only feels comfortable discussing things with women. Which is funny, because 80 percent of readers are women!

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

I love Paul Giamatti - God, that man is like a walking Chekhov. His connection to humanity is unbelievable, and those feelings of low self-esteem - the way that all comes together on the screen? Delicious.