In Israel, the role of the writer is dictated by the language in which you write. Writers see themselves as cultural prophets.

In the army you feel violated - there's no private space. Writing was a life-saver, a way of recovering private territory.

In America, where writers are preoccupied with the craft of writing, I always try to introduce this concept of the badly written good story. Turning the hierarchy around and putting passion on top and not craft, because when you just focus on craft, you can write something that is very sterile.

Often in writing programs, articulation and clarity are more important than what you actually say.

Nobody else in the world would look at writing as craftsmanship - it's totally this Protestant hardworking ethic. You go into this kind of infinite space of imagination and you fence yourself in with all kinds of laws.

I'm not saying that I don't experience people in life as evil, but writing is not a place of alienation; writing is the place where we can try to be human.

I never know the endings when I write. It's a turnoff when you know the ending. You lose much of your incentive to write when you already know. It's like seeing a movie a second time.

Making up characters and places and plots, unlike fixing your plumbing or doing dishes, is anything but practical or rational. I write what needs to be written the way that seems genuinely right.

I usually start writing stories from tone and not from content - kind of like people who create music and invent the lyrics later on.