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" I spent my whole childhood being told, 'Israel is surrounded by enemies who are trying to push it into the sea.' But can't Gaza feel the same way? Personally, I'm frozen in time. "
Nathan Englander
Time
Trying
Sea
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" There's no safety in anything, but in the arts, there is really this idea of no promises. I didn't follow the writing dream for safety. "
Nathan Englander
Safety
Dream
Follow
" I'm very interested in how people change. "
Nathan Englander
Very
People Change
People
" I feel very lucky that I have this career that allows me to say, 'I'm ready to start now on this project,' and I can go and do it. "
Nathan Englander
I Can
Start
Career
" Yes, there is a way I was taught to think that's very suited to writing. And, of course, I'm thankful to have grown up in a world filled with stories. "
Nathan Englander
Way
Thankful
Think
" My mother raised me very clearly that if you cross the street, you will die. If you go outside, you will die. If you play sports, you will likely die. That's what I was getting at home. "
Nathan Englander
Sports
You
Die
" I know nobody believes in peace anymore, but what else is there to work toward? As the years have gone by, peace seems like more and more of an impossibility. "
Nathan Englander
Work
Gone
Know
" Palestine isn't a state when it concerns statehood. When it comes to warring, it's a state, yes? The Palestinians, they live in a country, for the purpose of war. "
Nathan Englander
Yes
Live
State
" Everything is so much clearer once a world is framed. Maybe it sounds crazy, but with writing, it's infinity that is limiting and the limited that allows for the truly infinite. Once all those elements are in place in a story, the brain is truly freed up to imagine without end. "
Nathan Englander
Crazy
Story
End
" I wrote a novel, so now they can call me a novelist. I tell stories; that's it. "
Nathan Englander
Call
Me
Now
" I lived in Jerusalem with the Temple Mount as my holy site. My Palestinian neighbors lived in Al-Quds with the Haram al-Sharif. "
Nathan Englander
Jerusalem
Lived
Neighbors
" I always call myself either an optimistic pessimist or a pessimistic optimist - I'm not sure which way it goes. "
Nathan Englander
Optimist
Myself
Pessimist
" I hardly grew up mono-lingually! I was raised religious, so there's a tradition of semi-access to a second language. When I learned my ABCs, they taught us our Aleph-Bet at the same time. "
Nathan Englander
Tradition
Up
Same
" I was resistant to the Internet. I was afraid of it. "
Nathan Englander
Afraid
Resistant
Internet
" When you're in a world, and your parents are one way, and you're told, 'This is how the whole world is, and this is how you're supposed to be,' and you're terribly unhappy in that world, it's a very scary thing. "
Nathan Englander
You
Way
World
" I'm just very interested, fascinated, heartbroken, obsessed with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and our need to find peace on that front... Everyone's always, like, victim and avenger at the same time. "
Nathan Englander
Find
Need
Peace
" So writing stories is not easier in comparison to the playwriting or translation; the stories are easier in league with them. "
Nathan Englander
Writing
Easier
Comparison
" Whatever part of writing that is subconscious is a thing that no one has access to. "
Nathan Englander
Subconscious
Whatever
Access
" Your brain forms a story and, if you're lucky, there's a line where the story takes over the brain. You don't even know what you have. "
Nathan Englander
Lucky
Brain
Know
" Every nation should wrestle with the question of what it means to defend itself, what it means to take revenge. "
Nathan Englander
Revenge
Take
Defend
" I don't think it's the writer's job to give answers or to give opinions. In fact, when a writer has answers, I think the work ends up being corrupted. It becomes didactic. What a book does is share a consciousness and invite people to explore the questions as best as you can. "
Nathan Englander
Job
Best
Work
" I think my love for rhythm in language comes from repeating the same words, the same sounds, over and over again day after day for so many years. "
Nathan Englander
Language
Love
Over
" I understand if everyone looking at me is seeing a Jew and seeing me as a kind of 'other.' But I can't be expected to see myself that way. That is, to me, Jewish is the normal way to be; it's not a type of being. "
Nathan Englander
Seeing
Looking
Me
" 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. "
Nathan Englander
Story
You
Just Because
" You spend so much time as a writer telling straight and linear stories. "
Nathan Englander
Stories
Time
You
" It's so easy to call something a Jewish story or a gay story or a woman's story. Aesthetically, if a story is not universal, it has failed. Your obligation is to the story. One rule creatively, and emotionally, is its universality. "
Nathan Englander
Easy
Universal
Woman
" There's an Armed Forces Haggadah and an Alcoholics Anonymous Haggadah and an LGBT Haggadah. Some people make a new Haggadah every year. It's a real living document... They're just constantly made throughout time. "
Nathan Englander
People
Time
Some People
" When I wrote my novel, 'The Ministry of Special Cases,' I couldn't even brush my teeth. I had to write in isolation from everything else. I thought a play would take away from my fiction, but the more projects I work on, the more time I have. "
Nathan Englander
Work
Isolation
Special
" With each book, I've found myself more and more able to draw off the personal and still be as vulnerable as I need to be as a writer. "
Nathan Englander
Personal
Off
Need
" When you see 'editor' on a book, there are many permutations of what that title can mean. "
Nathan Englander
Title
Editor
Book
" 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. "
Nathan Englander
Age
Writing
Woman