I lived in Jerusalem with the Temple Mount as my holy site. My Palestinian neighbors lived in Al-Quds with the Haram al-Sharif.

I think in circles; I speak in circles. I unravel my thoughts that way.

I wrote a novel, so now they can call me a novelist. I tell stories; that's it.

Philip Roth has been a huge influence on me. The early books I read in my teens and twenties.

Human experience is infinite. Lives are infinite. Stories are infinite. Just because one story has gravity in it doesn't mean you can't write a different one with gravity in it.

I am a fifth-generation American, but from a young age, I went to yeshiva. I spent 12 hours a day with rabbis, and I think in Yiddish. To this day, I have to go back and unravel my writing and polish it so everyone doesn't sound like an old Jewish woman.