Edith Pearlman

In the late 1950s, self-esteem hadn't yet been invented. High schools saw their sole mission as preparing students thoroughly for academic work.

All the stories I write come from someone I've met or some anecdote I've heard.

Tony Judt's remarkable 'The Memory Chalet' was written from the prison of mute immobility.

My first career ambitions involved turning into a boy; I intended to be either a railway guard or a knight errant.

I think that, in almost all human beings, there is buried a profound tribal instinct that makes us very susceptible to being aroused to patriotic fervour.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.