What do I want from a book? Something protean, something always on-the-move-or-make - shape-shifting, semantically-and-syntactically-shifting. Joshua Cohen More Quotes by Joshua Cohen More Quotes From Joshua Cohen Most novelists are narcissistic egomaniacs who would probably fit somewhere on the CEO spectrum. Joshua Cohen ceo somewhere who spectrum The problem is Jewish-American fiction that always ends with assimilation back into the community. Joshua Cohen back always community problem The M.F.A. is a degree in servitude. It is a way to keep writing safe - to keep reading safe from writing. Joshua Cohen degree reading writing way Writing is a conviction before it is a craft. Joshua Cohen craft before conviction writing The big publishers want someone they can send on the Jewish book circuit, somebody the old ladies can see marrying their granddaughters. Joshua Cohen someone see want book I first read Dostoyevsky when I was 14 years old and was entranced. Dostoyevsky truly is a writer for 14-year-olds, and I mean that in the most approving way - approving of his energy, and rage, his endless pessimism, and endless innocence. Joshua Cohen old innocence energy way In Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Jekyll & Hyde,' the hero decides on the terms of his transformation in a process that's explained not through the supernatural but the natural or, at least, through biochemistry. Joshua Cohen through transformation process hero