Society decides when we get old. But the spirit never ages.

Literary characters, like my grandmother's apparitions, are fragile beings, easily frightened; they must be treated with care so they will feel comfortable in my pages

That is the best part of writing: finding the hidden treasures, giving sparkle to worn out events, invigorating the tired soul with imagination, creating some kind of truth with many lies.

​Courage is a virtue appreciated in a male but considered a defect in our gender. Bold women are a threat to a world that is badly out of balance, in favor of men.

I was born in the middle of World War II, the middle of the Holocaust; I was born when there was no declaration of human rights, when feminism was not an issue, when children were working in factories. I mean, today's world is a better place!

Feminism is dated? Yes, for privileged women like my daughter and all of us here today, but not for most of our sisters in the rest of the world who are still forced into premature marriage, prostitution, forced labor - they have children that they don't want or they cannot feed.

It's good for a writer to come from journalism because it gives you the tools. A journalist knows that he or she can lose the reader in six lines, so try to keep the attention of the reader. Also, you learn to research, and to conduct an interview - to extract from the person whatever you need from that person.