“When I found myself in the U.S., and the war was at full swing in Bosn...” — Aleksandar Hemon Quote

“When I found myself in the U.S., and the war was at full swing in Bosnia, I read for survival - it was a means of thought resuscitation.”

“You are always working on your worst book and your best book at the same time. The praise does not make you write better, and it shouldn't make you write worse, either.”

“I'll take any life in which I can make choices and have agency, and America is not a bad place for all that.”

“The trouble with calling a book a novel, well, it's not like I'm writing the same book all the time, but there is a continuity of my interests, so when I start writing a book, if I call it 'a novel,' it separates it from other books.”

“I cannot stand that whole game of confession, that is: Here I have sinned, now I'm confessing my sins, and describing my path of sin and then in the act of confession I beg for your forgiveness and redemption.”

“I am a writer, which means I write stories, I write novels, and I would write poetry if I knew how to. I don't want to limit myself.”

“We Bosniaks would for sure fight for integrity of Bosnia.”

“If it wasn't for the military I probably would not have ever come to Bosnia for vacation.”

“When I went to Bosnia, I was there to tell someone else's story and I was more methodical.”

“It's very difficult for me to represent a white player. It just is. Look around. There's very few. I represent a player from Bosnia. But, again, he's international. He looks at it different.”

“I think to a certain extent in Bosnia and among the Hutus in Rwanda and also among the Tutsis in Rwanda who then took revenge on the Hutus, there is a sense of being swept up and a sense that the society in which they live has gone mad.”

“I don't think Bosnia is ready for reconciliation, but I do think it is ready for truth.”