A lot of writers that I know have told me that the first book you write, you write about your childhood, whether you want to or not. It calls you back.

When I hit a block, regardless of what I am writing, what the subject matter is, or what's going on in the plot, I go back and I read Pablo Neruda's poetry. I don't actually speak Spanish, so I read it translation. But I always go back to Neruda. I don't know why, but it calms me, calms my brain.

death should be celebrated...when you put something in the ground you always know where it is

Wash the bones, bring the body, leave the heart behind.

At the end of the day, despite all the other great things that literature does in society and in a person's life, I think that we read to escape. And I think that place, more than anything, provides that escape quickly, if an author is engaged with the place.

For me it was a lot harder to come to terms with the death of my grandfather than it was to come to terms with what's happened to the former Yugoslavia.

Come on, is your heart a sponge or a fist?