194 Quotes by Etgar Keret

I write what needs to be written the way that seems genuinely right. If what comes out of it are stories, then it is my vocation to believe in them and in the fact that they’ll interest people and maybe affect their lives.

A typical thought by way of example: at night, when we say we’re going to sleep, and we get into bed and shut our eyes, we’re not really asleep. We’re just pretending. We shut our eyes and breathe rhythmically, pretending to be asleep, until the deceit grows slowly real. And maybe that’s how it is with death.

During the war, there were people wishing me death, wishing my son death, wishing my wife death in very graphic ways. In the past, I would go overseas and I would say, “Israel is like my family: we disagree, but we’re all brothers.” I can’t say that anymore, because life proves me wrong.

Apparently, I’m very, very popular in jails. They often ask me to come and speak.

All my writing-life people kept telling me that I should stop writing short stories and start writing novels: my agent, my Israeli publisher, my foreign ones, my bank manager – they all felt and keep feeling that I’m doing something wrong here.

My father – I once asked him what was his greatest achievement. He said his greatest achievement was that he fought in five wars in the infantry, always on the front line, and never hurt anybody.

If we’re a family and your brother wishes you death, it’s not a very happy family.

I really believe hatred is not a primal emotion, in that you can’t find it in nature. It’s basically some kind of distortion of fear.

When you work on a graphic novel or a film with people you’ve been together through a lot and you’ve exposed your secrets and weaker sides to each other.