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" The Muslim heaven features prominently in the Quran, Arabic poetries and Hadith. The Jewish heaven, though, is still a mystery; it's mystic. "
Joshua Cohen
Still
Muslim
Jewish
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" In mid-20th-century America, it could be argued that the novelist still had the most claim of anyone to omniscience. Whatever he/she couldn't prove, he/she could gesture at. "
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" There are so many classic Big Brother warning books: the Internet is a horrible, controlling thing, as if it has a consciousness or political agenda. "
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" The M.F.A. is a degree in servitude. It is a way to keep writing safe - to keep reading safe from writing. "
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" English, unlike Hebrew, is read from left to right - as are clocks. The concepts of clockwise and counterclockwise are universal, irrespective of alphabet. "
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" Most literature everywhere and of every time is bad. "
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" I've always been discreet - more than discreet. When a friend calls, and I'm doing something innocuous like cooking dinner, I tell them I'm reading or running out to the movies. It's the surveillance I can't stand. "
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" The Internet is a tool, a technology, and we like to say that it has all of these properties, but really, it's just a place where our writing is. "
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" I don't think any book of mine will ever come as close to pure fantasy as 'A Heaven of Others.' I'll never again set a book in a world or after-world in which it's impossible to buy a cup of coffee or take an undisturbed afternoon nap. "
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" The big publishers want someone they can send on the Jewish book circuit, somebody the old ladies can see marrying their granddaughters. "
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Old
Big
Book
" You write a novel by inventing a world and inventing the rules that govern that world. Then you break the rules when you want to. "
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" What do I want from a book? Something protean, something always on-the-move-or-make - shape-shifting, semantically-and-syntactically-shifting. "
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" The Internet makes the writer work harder - I have to say things here I've never said before, or else be caught out in repeating myself. "
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" I have a credit card and a phone. I answer emails; I answer questions on chat in the middle of the day. Then, late at night, I write against other people who do just that. "
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People
" All of business and all of politics is essentially fiction to those who live them. I have more experience with fiction than most senators because I do it all day, so their world didn't seem that foreign to me. "
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Politics
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Me
" The problem is Jewish-American fiction that always ends with assimilation back into the community. "
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Community
Always
Back
" I think if German literature could survive the '40s and Russian literature could survive Sovietism, American literature can survive Google. "
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American
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" Books were in my family - books were my family. "
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Family
Books
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" I first read Dostoyevsky when I was 14 years old and was entranced. Dostoyevsky truly is a writer for 14-year-olds, and I mean that in the most approving way - approving of his energy, and rage, his endless pessimism, and endless innocence. "
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" Without computers, in the 17th century, we could classify the entire animal kingdom... there was this idea of the speciation, right? And now, all a search engine is is essentially the mathematical speciation of ideas - and these things really derive from the way that language is used and the way words relate. "
Joshua Cohen
Search
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Words
" What qualified me to write about Israel was that I wanted to; it took no time to convince myself. The only reservation I had was about eaven: I wanted to write about the Jewish heaven but did not feel qualified because I did not and do not believe in 'it,' though I should. "
Joshua Cohen
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" Metaphors, similes, puns - all manner of metonymy - I'm interested in language that cannot be parsed by a machine - language that can only be understood through acculturation. "
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" Writing is a conviction before it is a craft. "
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" You know you're a fool when what you're doing makes even the post office seem efficient. "
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" Most novelists are narcissistic egomaniacs who would probably fit somewhere on the CEO spectrum. "
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