In the half darkness I winked to my other self, my mad dictator, and congratulated him on his droll victory. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth flowing from Shosha's head to my face. What did I have to lose? Nothing more than what everyone loses anyway.

Kindness, I've discovered, is everything in life.

A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise... Because this is how life is full of surprises.

The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual - when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions - it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.

I was brought up to believe in free will. Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day.

I am thankful, of course, for the prize and thankful to God for each story, each idea, each word, each day.

There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead? The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.