Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other.

I have had this longstanding interest in going back to school to get a Ph.D. in art history. I was especially interested in exploring this idea of the ecstatic impulse in an artist.

I grew up with older brothers, adore them, can't imagine going through life without them, and I definitely think I draw on that love when I'm writing about siblings. It's so powerful, the jump-in-front-of-a-train-to-protect-them kind of love.

Second novels are bears. As are other people's expectations for them. I think taking the time you need with the second book is key. Writers spend years and years on their first novels and then are often expected to turn out a second at warp speed, a recipe for failure.

I want to make as much of a contribution as I can, to Harvard, to higher education and hopefully, to education around the world.

If they're out of high school, and they can go directly to the NBA and get drafted and get millions of dollars, I'm for it 100 percent. Just let's not devalue education. Let's just not devalue it.

The ancient Jewish people gave the world the vision of eternal peace, of universal disarmament, of abolishing the teaching and learning of war.

A simple summary of my life is that my parents worked very hard so that I could have a great education, and I took that education and worked very hard to get where I am. I would like my kids' lives to be exactly the same.