The novel is about five students of classics who are studying with a classics professor, and they take the ideas of the things that they're learning from him a bit too seriously, with terrible consequences.

The job of the novelist is to invent: to embroider, to color, to embellish, to make things up.

The Little Friend is a long book. It's also completely different from my first novel: different landscape, different characters, different use of language and diction, different approach to story.

So I'm not a Southern writer in the commonly held sense of the term, like Faulkner or Eudora Welty, who took the South for their entire literary environment and subject matter.

Just Can't Let You Go' is a song about passion. It's when you have such a strong passion and love for someone or something that your heart just can't let it go. Whether it's a special boy, girl, or that feeling you get when performing on stage or playing a sport. For me, my passion is music. I just can't let it go!

I am the wealthiest man, not just in Europe, but in the whole world. I collect emotions. I am wealthy in that the people of Russia have twice entrusted me with the leadership of a great nation such as Russia - I believe that is my greatest wealth.

I'm married. I have a daughter, so I put aside time in the day to spend with them.

Some people are really good at the visionary role. They're like third grade teachers who tell people the vision and values over and over and over until they get it right, right, right. But they're not implementers. If they're good leaders, they gather people around them who can take the implementation role and move it forward.