To be Jewish is to be specifically identified with a history. And if you're not aware of that when you're a child, the whole tradition is lost.

Reading yields a wish to write, I think, except if the reading is dull and uninspiring.

A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him.

You need so much energy and encouragement to write that if someone says something negative, some of that energy goes.

Stories come to us as wraiths requiring precise embodiments.

There is something thrilling in the mimesis of life's surprising unfolding.

At all crucial moments in our lives we want to speak without knowing what to say.