When writing dialogue, I hear it in both Russian and English, and try to find a language that combines the two.

Why are some people highly principled and willing to do anything for their principles, while most of us are not? And I am willing to not only ask, but also answer the question.

Language is a personality as well. People are different when they speak different languages.

I spent seven years writing The Free World. There are a lot of things I accomplished there that I'm very proud of, but I didn't want to spend another seven years writing a book like that.

People everywhere feel differently at different times of their lives.

I think having an uncompromising ideology eventually forces you out of the norm.

We are taught that we can be better than we are. But is there a limit to how good we can be?

In my experience of women, women have a greater capacity. Maybe women, even very pragmatic ones, are less guarded about showing emotions.

We all have some ideological quotient in ourselves. And I think it does guide who we are.

Nothing is easy in writing. I don't think for anyone. But dialogue is probably what comes most naturally to me.

When you write a book, you want to have fidelity to the character. Characters and their emotions guide the structure of the novel.

Some champions are born others are forged!

Like creating a masterpiece, quitting is an art: you have to decide what to keep within the frame and what to keep out.

To be a strong and empathetic person always requires us to trust that God will send angels to the people's heart we tried to reach, but couldn't.

At our present bad moment, we need above all to recover our sense of literary individuality and of poetic autonomy.

Appearances often are deceiving.

It's a weight problem isn't it; you can't wait for lunch.

Life is fundamentally up for grabs

If self-validation were our most significant societal measure - we would give trophies to ourselves.

The rhetoric of theory is always in a bind. It pronounces ideas and denounces failures to accept or grasp them while insisting that there are no grounds either for accepting or grasping ideas.

When I pressed Jesus to my heart, I said to Him: 'I will be a priest. I promise You!' ...Oh, what graces Our Lord gave me then! Yes, I believe my conversion at that time was sincere and perfect.