Quotes from Etgar Keret

It took a lot to understand that the interest in both writing a story and reading it is not in the objective dangers someone takes. You don't have to fight snakes or wake up in a strange apartment to have a story; it's about what goes on inside your mind and soul.

Before I started to make films, I didn't give much thought to the way the characters were physically positioned in the story world.

Writing a story is kind of like surfing, as opposed to the novel, where you use a GPS to get somewhere. With surfing, you kind of jump.

I really believe hatred is not a primal emotion, in that you can't find it in nature. It's basically some kind of distortion of fear.

You don't need to use the language of God to ask where the restrooms are.

In Israel, the role of the writer is dictated by the language in which you write. Writers see themselves as cultural prophets.

Being ambivalent doesn't mean that you're a relevatist, that anything goes; it just means that you show the complexity of life. Life is always complex.

Maybe in the general scheme of things he couldn't find any meaning in life, but on a smaller scale it was okay. Not always, but a lot of the time.

As the son of Holocaust survivors, this is life - you're put in a corner, and you have to get out. I believe that you can always get out.

Life keeps being a beautiful and frustrating experience.

I'm not saying that I don't experience people in life as evil, but writing is not a place of alienation; writing is the place where we can try to be human.

As a monogamous creature, I feel sometimes that it fills up a function that affairs have in married people's life.

Life is one heck of an invention. It is better than the iPhone 4S and Coke Zero combined.

In the army you feel violated - there's no private space. Writing was a life-saver, a way of recovering private territory.

I rarely return to characters. My characters, at least most of them, are much more a part of that superorganism that is the story than separate and independent creatures.

When I write a story, I have no idea what I'm doing. All I know is that I want to share something with my readers. The whole idea of writing is this place where you lose control, where you're irresponsible - it's a very liberating place.

In Israel, there is this reduction of the political discourse to something that is very limited. It's as if you have that pitch that only dogs can hear. Sometimes I feel I speak at such a pitch that very few people around me communicate with what I'm saying.

I never know the endings when I write. It's a turnoff when you know the ending. You lose much of your incentive to write when you already know. It's like seeing a movie a second time.

I always have a story in my head that needs to be written, or at least I think I do. But I usually can't find the time to write it.

He tells them that there is a line that separates killing bugs from killing frogs, and that no matter how hard it is, that line must never be crossed

Cennetin hayatlar?n? iyilik yapmaya adam??lar?n yeri olduÄŸunu san?rd?m, ama öyle deÄŸilmiÅŸ. Tanr? böyle bir karar vermeyecek kadar merhametli ve müÅŸfik. Cennet dünyada gerçekten mutlu olamayanlar?n yeri

There should be an age limit for patients, he thinks as he takes off his shoes. You just have to say to them, "You lived long enough. From now on, think of what's left as a bonus, a gift without an exchange slip. It hurts? Stay in bed. It still hurts? Wait: Either you'll die or it'll pass.

When you say I love you very much , and your asthma's attack occurs, there is no time for palaver because instead of very you have to say call the ambulance .

Don't you go and dump reality on us like a garbage truck.