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.

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.

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