What I'm trying to do [in Winter Journal] is to tell the story of a man's life from birth, but there are different versions of him, four different versions.

I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It's the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.

In a sense I am able to interrogate myself, address myself from that slight distance and enter a kind of dialogical relationship with myself. Because I'm saying, "Look, these are things that have happened to me, but how odd they are or how ordinary they are [is up to the reader to decide]."

For one reason or another, I became a passionate reader when I was very little. As soon as I could read, I wanted to read.

Medical care for the entire country seems to me a basic right. If every other country in the West can do it, why can't we?

I think if we didn't contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive.

A book, at the same time, also has to do with what I call a buzz in the head. It's a certain kind of music that I start hearing. It's the music of the language, but it's also the music of the story. I have to live with that music for a while before I can put any words on the page. I think that's because I have to get my body as much as my mind accustomed to the music of writing that particular book. It really is a mysterious feeling.