Why don't you like the foods I like?" he asks sometimes. "Why don't you like the foods I make?" I answer.

Nearly every morning, a certain woman in our community comes running out of her house with her face white and her overcoat flapping wildly. She cries out, "Emergency, emergency," and one of us runs to her and holds her until her fears are calmed. We know she is making it up; nothing is has really happened to her. But we understand, because there is hardly one of us who has no been moved at some time to do just what she has done, and every time, it has taken all our strength, and even the strength of our friends and families, too, to keep us quiet.

I don't feel I have to struggle against allegory. I let the readers do the interpreting.

Do what you want to do, and don't worry if it's a little odd or doesn't fit the market.

Often, the idea that there can be a wide range of translations of one text doesn't occur to people - or that a translation could be bad, very bad, and unfaithful to the original.

I find teaching - I like it, but I find just walking into the classroom and facing the students very difficult.

I think a lot of what goes into writing can be taught - not mixing metaphors, etc.