Chang-rae Lee quotes

As for what's the most challenging aspect of teaching, it's convincing younger writers of the importance of reading widely and passionately. (Chang-rae Lee)
For sometimes you can't help but crave some ruin in what you love. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
I wanted to write about the Korean War, but I had no entry into it that made the kind of sense it needs to make for a novelist. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
For if there is ever a moment when we are most vulnerable, it's when we're closest to the idea of the attained desire, and thus farthest from ourselves, which is when we'll tread through any flame. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
My family immigrated when I was 3, and our predecessors inhabited the Korean Peninsula for as long as can be recalled. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
No place is perfect, but I admire Oahu for its offering of the tropical and the urban, and then its Asian-inflected culture and cuisines. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
I'm interested in people who find themselves in places, either of their choosing or not, and who are forced to decide how best to live there. That feeling of both citizenship and exile, of always being an expatriate - with all the attendant problems and complications and delight. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
In my teaching, I try to expose my students to the widest range of aesthetic possibilities, so I'll offer them stories from Anton Chekhov to Denis Johnson, from Flannery O'Connor to A.M. Homes, and perhaps investigating all that strange variation of beauty has rubbed off on me. Or perhaps that's why I enjoy teaching literature. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
One of the ready advantages of writing a road or quest story is that it mirrors the experience of writing a novel. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
I often think that the prime directive for me as a teacher of writing is akin to that for a physician, which is this: do no harm. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
It is 'where we are' that should make all the difference, whether we believe we belong there or not. (Chang-rae Lee)
Like most people, I'm fascinated by characters who are completely flawed personalities, riven by anguish and doubt, and are psychologically suspect. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
Most people don't think about race as much as I do. They don't have to. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
To be honest, I'm not that much of a reader of Korean fiction, since so little is translated. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
Even though I went to Exeter and Yale, and I enjoyed all the trappings of those places, I think at the same time – and maybe it's because I'm an immigrant kid and not white – there was always this other consciousness; that is, I was conscious of everything that was going on. And I was observing. Some people just ARE, because the temperature of the water is exactly the temperature of their body...But my temperature is always off, a little bit. And I have to note it. And I always did, from a very young age. I don't know if that's my character or upbringing or both. View quote
Chang-rae Lee
Well the voices, for me especially in first person story-telling, the voice is of primary importance. And the voice reflects and articulates that particular character and what that particular character is interested in and troubled by, and so the voices are different because the people are different. It seems to be an obvious thing to say but it has to be said... View quote
Chang-rae Lee