The misery of other people is only an abstraction something that can be sympathized with only by drawing from one's own experiences. But as it stands, true empathy remains impossible. And so long as it is, people will continue to suffer the pressure of their seemingly singular existence.

To walk into a modern-day bookstore is a little bit like studying a single photograph out of the infinite number of photographs that cold be taken of the world: It offers the reader a frame.

When I was with Yoav, everything in me that had been sitting stood up. He had a way of looking at me with a kind of unabashed directness that made me shiver. It's something amazing to feel that for the first time someone is seeing you as you really are, not as they wish you, or you wish yourself, to be.

It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.

He died alone because he was too embarrassed to phone anyone.

My first novel, 'Man Walks Into a Room,' is about a man who's lost his memory and has to start a second life. On one level, it's about how we create a coherent sense of self.

Part of the work of writing a novel is to uncover the symmetries or connections that make it whole, which might not reveal itself at first.