death should be celebrated...when you put something in the ground you always know where it is

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.

In the end, the slow decay of the body didn't matter. We all continue on, renewing ourselves, through our offspring. They are what matter. They are what survives.

Our doubts are traitors, and make us loose the good that we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.

We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

Self-acceptance has been a blessed by-product of middle age.

Is human love the growth of the human will ?

Fidelity is seven-tenths of business success.

For some things there are no wrong seasons. Which is what I dream of for me.

It's too bad our society isn't further along.

Books are becoming everything to me. If I had at this moment any choice in life, I would bury myself in one of those immense libraries...and never pass a waking hour without a book before me.

I don't think you should criticize people's music because maybe it just isn't for you.