You say fate is almost indispensable to literature - I think it's completely indispensable, at least in a novel, because a novel always has a plot. E….

When I look at life I try to be as agnostic and unmetaphysical as possible. So I have to admit that, most probably, we do not have a fate. But I thin….

A neglect of one's sentimental education early in life could bear the most unfortunate fruit..

I really just wanted to write about three brothers. When you do that, though, it gives you this wonderful opportunity to tie together different socia….

I wanted to write a book that would leave open many riddles and mysteries, even to me. Of course in some cases I do know the answers, but in many oth….

People who have experienced nothing love to tell stories while people who have experienced a great deal suddenly have no stories to tell at all..

Usually the German translators do something terrible, especially with Tom Wolfe, which is that they make it local. So if the characters are from Harl….

One of the points where the art world is at its most metaphysical is in this weird aspect of the power of the expert. There are experts who claim the….

I think I can work anywhere, but you don't get the same kind of inspiration everywhere. New York theater has become a big inspiration for me. I only ….

It's also one of these strange points where metaphysics converges with economy. Because really what the experts are doing is creating value by banish….

When I write a book I'm always questioning the project as a whole. I always feel I might have to just throw it away and forget about it, and I've don….

Also, whenever you have direct speech, and I don't quite know why, but it always gets better in English. Dialogue, the flow of dialogue, English just….

When you translate the American writers who are best with dialogue into German - someone like Elmore Leonard, or Tom Wolfe, who's also quite good wit….

English has a better way with colloquialisms. It has colloquialisms that are colorful and expressive but not too heavy or distracting. In German, if ….

We think in terms of fate even if we don't believe in it. Even something as trivial as missing the bus - we think: Well, it might be good for somethi….

German can take a lot more pathos than English can. When you say "pathetic" in English it's a disparaging term, but when you say "pathetisch" in Germ….

It was both odd and unjust, a real example of pitiful arbitrariness of existance, that you were born into a particular time & held prisoner there whe….

Usually I work out the plot before I start. This time I thought: Writers always talk about not knowing where a book is going - -I want to experience ….

I'm trying to exploit the bestseller, in a way, but not in the sense of repeating the formula. It's just that the bestseller did so well economically….

For a while I never show anybody what I'm writing, and during that time I need the feeling that publishing is only an option. I might publish this, I….

I think that's just what happens when you write a big bestseller. After that you need to find out: What's the best way to go on? And the worst thing ….