Etgar Keret

“A word is a lot.”

— Etgar Keret

I think there are some artists whose works are misanthropic.

— Etgar Keret

“You can remember without seeing it.”

— Etgar Keret

Life keeps being a beautiful and frustrating experience.

— Etgar Keret

People usually don't allow you to cut off their tongue.

— Etgar Keret

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

— Etgar Keret

For three months, a person sits and looks at you, imagining a kiss.

— Etgar Keret

You'll never know what's happening inside the heads of other people.

— Etgar Keret

I like smoking pot, but I'm not the kind of guy who smokes every day.

— Etgar Keret

I think that before my son was born, I didn't have a strong sensation for future. I was living in this kind…

— Etgar Keret

Hebrew is this unique thing that you cannot translate to any other language. It has to do with its history.

— Etgar Keret

Writing is very castrating in the moment. Fiction in general, it has no function, nobody asks for it.

— Etgar Keret

As a child, I never wanted my parents to be unhappy, which meant that I would always contemplate what would make them…

— Etgar Keret

I think that, in Israel, the greatest fear that people have, and I have it, too, is fear of genocide.

— Etgar Keret

I think that becoming a parent kind of made me try to be more responsible. And it made me much more stressful.

— Etgar Keret

If we're a family and your brother wishes you death, it's not a very happy family.

— Etgar Keret

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

— Etgar Keret

In Israel, there is this reduction of the political discourse to something that is very limited. It's as if you have that…

— Etgar Keret

Collaborating with your wife is amazing because you are doing something together with a person you truly love and know and discover…

— Etgar Keret

What you experience in the army, aged 18 to 21, is what you take through all your life. You cross invisible lines:…

— Etgar Keret

Writing is a way of living other lives. It is a way of expanding your life. It's not actually living a different…

— Etgar Keret

Most of the Jewish writer friends I have are American, and I feel closer to them because they're always obsessed with one…

— Etgar Keret

I used to feel that if I say something's wrong, I have to say how it could be made right. But what…

— Etgar Keret

“...but I felt then the same way Nicky did, that I was getting myself more life. Not necessarily a better life, not…

— Etgar Keret

He felt full of a dense and sour substance that was blocking his chest, and it wasn't grief. After all those years,…

— Etgar Keret

What happens when you speak colloquial Hebrew is you switch between registers all the time. So in a typical sentence, three words…

— Etgar Keret

What connects me so strongly to Israel is the fact that I'm second generation. My parents said, "We have a place where…

— Etgar Keret

“When I ask him if he thinks there's a moral to his story, he says he's sure there must be, but doesn't…

— Etgar Keret

The moment that you have a child - that you know that when he'll turn 18, he'll join the Army and go…

— Etgar Keret

In America, where writers are preoccupied with the craft of writing, I always try to introduce this concept of the badly written…

— Etgar Keret

If you were to do the world championship of victimhood in modern times, then the finals would probably be between Jews and…

— Etgar Keret

He misses the feeling of creating something out of something. That’s right — something out of something. Because something out of nothing…

— Etgar Keret

“When you're having an asthma attack, you don't have any breath. When you don't have any breath, it's hard to speak. You're…

— Etgar Keret

Hebrew was frozen, like frozen peas, fresh out of the Bible.

— Etgar Keret

If you scare somebody enough, they stop being rational.

— Etgar Keret

I think tone gives birth to the story.

— Etgar Keret

Translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they’re no good.

— Etgar Keret

It's funny, but I think my stories - the good ones - they're much smarter than I am.

— Etgar Keret

I always have a story in my head that needs to be written, or at least I think I do. But I…

— Etgar Keret

I was born at six months, and I weighed 900 grams [less than two pounds]. I have a very heroic birth story.

— Etgar Keret