Chang-Rae Lee Quotes

Quotes about:

• For sometimes you can't help but crave some ruin in what you love.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Ruins, Helping, Sometimes

  Chang-rae Lee (2014). “On Such a Full Sea: A Novel”, p.63, Penguin

  44 Copy quote

• It is 'where we are' that should make all the difference, whether we believe we belong there or not.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Believe, Differences, Should

  17 Copy quote

• And it occurred to me that in this new millennial life of instant and ubiquitous connection, you don't in fact communicate so much as leave messages for one another, these odd improvisational performances, often sorry bits and samplings of ourselves that can't help but seem out of context. And then when you do finally reach someone, everyone's so out of practice or too hopeful or else embittered that you wonder if it would be better not to attempt contact at all.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Sorry, Practice, Hopeful

  62 Copy quote

• The truth, finally, is who can tell it.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Chang-rae Lee (1996). “Native Speaker”, p.14, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• In this difficult era the most valuable commodity is the unfailing turn of the hours and how they retrieve for us the known harbor of yesterday.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Yesterday, Eras, Commodity

  Chang-rae Lee (2014). “On Such a Full Sea: A Novel”, p.10, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• Obviously loss of family is huge and critical, but I think really it's more about losing a sense of family. The horror of that kind of incompleteness. Writing this book, I tried not to think about my father, which does no one any good fictionally. I did try to imagine not just the horror of that moment, but the horror of having witnessed it, and the lifelong void. And I think that's what's so frightening.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Father, Book, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Teaching, Reading, Challenges

  "Chang-rae Lee on War, Alienation, and the Power of Reading". Interview with Ru Freeman, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 15, 2012.

  8 Copy quote

• So my first book I had no experience having written a book, but each book is a little snapshot of who you are at that moment, accrued all through time, so I accept that.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Book, Firsts, Snapshots

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

• Most people dont think about race as much as I do. They dont have to.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Thinking, Race, People

  4 Copy quote

• Part of writing a novel is being willing to leap into the blackness. You have very little idea, really, of what's going to happen. You have a broad sense, maybe, but it's this rash leap. It's like spelunking. You kind of create the right path for yourself. But, boy, are there so many points at which you think, absolutely, I'm going down the wrong hole here. And I can't get back to the right hole. I'm not going to be able to get this section back to the right hole - so I'm just going to have to cut it.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Writing, Cutting, Boys

  4 Copy quote

• It's just a weird idea to me because each book is a complete universe unto itself, so why would I want this other universe from this other galaxy that has nothing to do with mine? That's how I really feel about it. Let's be honest - I'm still the writer, so certain things will be common denominators. But that I just want to keep natural and not studied.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Book, Ideas, Want

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Historical novels are about costumery. I think that's the magic and mystery of fiction. I don't want to write historical fiction but I do want the story to have the feel of history. There's a difference.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Writing, Thinking, Historical Novels

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• We have hopes and make plans, and if they are dashed or waylaid, we naturally rationalize and redraw the map to locate ourselves anew. Or else we brood and too firmly root. Very few can step forward again and again in what amounts to veritable leaps into the void, where there are no ready holds, where little is familiar, where you get constantly stuck in the thickets of your uncertainties and fears.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Roots, Maps, Littles

  Chang-rae Lee (2014). “On Such a Full Sea: A Novel”, p.98, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• What hasty preparations we make for our future. Think of it: it seems almost tragic, the things we're sure we ought to bring along. We pack too heavy with what we hope we'll use, and too light of what we must. We thus go forth misladen, ill equipped for the dawn.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Thinking, Light, Preparation

  Chang-rae Lee (2014). “On Such a Full Sea: A Novel”, p.212, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• A tale, like the universe, they tell us, expands ceaselessly each time you examine it, until there’s finally no telling exactly where it begins, or ends, or where it places you now.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Ends, Tales, Universe

  Chang-rae Lee (2014). “On Such a Full Sea: A Novel”, p.42, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Do not discount the psychic warmth of the hive.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Psychics, Discounts, Hives

  Chang-rae Lee (2014). “On Such a Full Sea: A Novel”, p.32, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• I assumed just from being around, all these years, that people would immediately glom on to, Well, it's a departure, and it's a dystopian kind of thing, and that's natural, of course. But it's surprised me - not even surprised me, but it's pleased me - how much people have been responding to the way the book was written.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Book, Years, People

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I'd always wanted to write something about the Korean War because of my heritage. My father lost his brother during the war, and I fictionalized that episode, which was told to me very briefly without much detail.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Brother, Father, War

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• What if loving something means you should mostly feel frustrated and thwarted? And then a little ruined, too, by the pursuit? But you keep coming back for more?

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Mean, Frustrated, What If

  4 Copy quote

• For no matter the shadows of an age, the picture of a young couple in love, we are told, speaks most luminously of the future, as the span of that passion makes us believe we can overleap any walls, obliterate whatever obstacles.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Wall, Couple, Believe

  Chang-rae Lee (2014). “On Such a Full Sea: A Novel”, p.20, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• I try to be aware of what I'm concerned about, aware of how I feel about myself in the world, aware of how I feel about the issues of the day, but I guess I don't want to write essays in my head about my craft and maybe it's because I teach and talk about craft of other writers as a reader. I feel the moment I start doing that is when it's going to kill me.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Writing, Issues, Trying

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I did feel a little afraid, as you say, the complete liberty and "elasticity" of it. But I found that I liked some of the things that it availed me of in terms of emotion and tonal stuff. I came to find it appealing.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Liberty, Littles, Stuff

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Some writers are writing one great, big book and just taking all these different avenues towards it. They might seem on the outside to be different, but they're really not. And that's a different kind of mindset. I don't know why it is, but I just feel like I really want to escape myself as much as I can - myself as the artist, or as the writer, or as the thinker - with each new project, because one, it's just boredom, but also, I guess I just feel most comfortable starting a new book if I just feel a little in the dark about it.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Book, Writing, Dark

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I don't think that stuff is gone - I just don't want to dwell on it. There's a difference. As I said, I think we all have tendencies as writers, and I think we all have experience that we bring as readers to each project.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Thinking, Differences, Gone

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I did a lot of reading of first person accounts from Koreans and combatants and aid workers. And I spoke to relatives. A lot of wonderful photographs were made available to me from that period - 1950-1956 - and those were given to me by a Korean newspaper in Seoul. Ruined villages, refugees streaming through a river valley, GI's and orphans and orphanages, those tiny details that you can only see in a picture.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Reading, Rivers, Village

  Source: therumpus.net

  6 Copy quote

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