I Write In Words. And My Words

Literature Exists Inside The Language. It's Made Of Words. It's Not Made Of Ideas And It's Not Made Of Concepts, Of Psychological Analysis. It's Made Of Words. In The Same Way In Which Music Is Made Of Notes And A Painting Is Made Of Lines Of Colors, The Matter Of Literature Are Words.

In Writing A Novel, The Writer Must Be Able To Identify Emotionally And Intellectually With Two Or Three Or Four Contradicting Perspectives And Give Each Of Them Very A Convincing Voice. It's Like Playing Tennis With Yourself And You Have To Be On Both Sides Of The Yard. You Have To Be On Both Sides, Or All Sides If There Are More Than Two Sides.

When I Was Little, My Ambition Was To Grow Up To Be A Book. Not A Writer. People Can Be Killed Like Ants. Writers Are Not Hard To Kill Either. But Not Books: However Systematically You Try To Destroy Them, There Is Always A Chance That A Copy Will Survive And Continue To Enjoy A Shelf-life In Some Corner On An Out-of-the-way Library Somehwere In Reykjavik, Valladolid Or Vancouver.

I Recommend The Art Of Slow Reading.

My Musical Instrument Is Hebrew And, To Me, This Is The Most Important Fact About My Writing. I Write In Words. I Don Write In Sounds Or In Shapes Or In Flavors. I Write In Words. And My Words Are Hebrew Words.