For a professional writer in the Soviet Union, it works this way. First, you have to have something to say - that's the main thing. Second, it's a matter of who publishes you. If your book has real stuff in it, readers will ferret it out, even in a Siberian journal.

A writer's main tool is his memory - his own memory, the collective memory of his people. And the strongest memory is the one that is created by a wound to the heart.

The comforts come from my movie and television writing. It is unusual to live this well simply from books.

Death solves all problems - no man, no problem.