A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until they die!

Obviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is formed by your previous experience. Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.

Eventually the writing takes time. What I want to do is get the story down and I want to know what happens as I write my way into the knowledge of the story.

There’s no remaking reality... Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes. There’s no other way.

How Far back must we go to discover the beginning of trouble?

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste? That's all we're given in life, that's all we're given of life. A taste. There is no more.