"My stories often start with some image or moment that stays with me... It could be something I experienced, or a conversation I overheard, or the way someone looked at someone else… I will usually just start writing toward that image or moment and build from there."

“There is often a bleakness that permeates Hebrew fiction, and certainly a much darker sense of humor, a lot of sarcasm and irony, as well as self-deprecation. These are less prevalent in most English writing…”

"If I were to even write it today, it would be a very different book. It might be better in some ways, but it would be probably less emotionally true to how I was feeling."

“Writing really resists optimization and that’s partly why I love it. It makes me reevaluate how I conceive of ‘time well spent.’”

It is difficult to convey just how important the Tower Records at the corner of Broadway and East 4th was to the feel and pulse of downtown New York, especially in its early days when there wasn’t much of either south of 14th Street.

“It doesn't get easier, I thought it would along the way.”