Let's see if I can write about something other than my heart.

Usually, with a novel, you start with no idea what to do because your job is to create convincing characters and then they just run around getting crazy. The problem with writing a memoir, obviously, is you can't do that because you sort of know what's going to happen. Because you're the character.

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!

I don't have many possessions, apart from my books.

The greatest books in Russian literature are satires. Gogol's Dead Souls, for example, is a very over-the-top satire about life in Russia. I think it's the thing we do best.

The radio station was playing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, a sure sign that things were much worse than they appeared.

Before my first novel, I was dating a woman who later went to prison for bashing a guy with a hammer.