I am very interested in place, and the influences of place on characters.

I grew up in Cyprus and Egypt, these fantastic places I remember fondly.

I do no writing while I'm in Belgrade visiting my grandma.

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.

The best fiction stays with you and changes you.

My grandfather and I were very close.

A family has its own rituals and its own superstitions.

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

We're all entitled to our superstitions.

My mother always says that fear and pain are immediate, and that, when they're gone we're left with the concept, but not the true memory.

I've always written about animals. I'm still trying to process why that is.

While real sacrifice is committed to the result, it relishes the effort

Like the phoenix, socialism is reborn from every pile of ashes left day in, day out, by burnt-out human dreams and charred hopes.

Kids coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan deserve to come back to 21st century medical care.

The essence of all beauty, I call love.

When it comes to foreign policy, it is important to remember that politics stops at the water's edge.

Neither my husband nor I am interested in mincing words. If I break something, for example, I have to announce it. I'm a compulsive confessor.

The bicameral mind with its controlling gods was evolved as a final stage of the evolution of language. And in this development lies the origin of civilization.

I had a girlfriend before I ever had a boyfriend, but it was just a phase.

Leo Tolstoy said the purpose of art is to teach you to love life. And that's what I want.

The economy is best revived through heavy investment in infrastructure.