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

Chang-Rae Lee

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Chang-Rae Lee
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: July 29
Academic
Novelist
University Teacher
Writer
Seoul Teukbyeolsi
Whether
Believe
Make
Belong
Difference
Differences

More quotes by Chang-Rae Lee

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Most people dont think about race as much as I do. They dont have to.
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All of my books really do look at that to degrees of difference. Technically, I do enjoy the flashback! But not just for informational material.
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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.
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For sometimes you can't help but crave some ruin in what you love.
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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.
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The past, as you suggest, is absolutely present at all times and the present is born from the past. I wouldn't want to suggest that the past determines the present.
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Imagination might not be limitless. It's still tethered to the universe of what we know.
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One of the things my friends would tell you is that I hang out with a lot of non-writers - just regular people like bankers and teachers, and I actually try to steer our talk away from my work when I get together with them.
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To be honest, Im not that much of a reader of Korean fiction, since so little is translated.
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I rarely talk about work with writers, and I love getting together with writers. I think writers are great to get together with, because we can talk about everything. I think that's why I enjoy it. Writers tend to be pretty open-minded, and pretty profane and loose. They have fun minds.
Chang-Rae Lee
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One of the things my friends would tell you is that I hang out with a lot of non-writers - just regular people like bankers and teachers, and I actually try to steer our talk away from my work when I get together with them.
Chang-Rae Lee
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When I'm describing wartime activities or violence I don't want to be too ornate, to prettify the picture. Once we trace them to the present, the prose becomes denser.
Chang-Rae Lee
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I had a visceral connection to the period [of Korean War]. By visceral I suppose I mean emotional. But every fiction requires so much that is not that so I did a lot of other research and a lot of thinking, a lot of struggling there.
Chang-Rae Lee
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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
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You can be affected by a person because of something particular they said or did but sometimes how a person was, a manner of being, that gets most deeply absorbed, and prompts you to revisit certain parts of your life with an enhanced perspective, flowing forward right up to now.
Chang-Rae Lee
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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
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As for what's the most challenging aspect of teaching, it's convincing younger writers of the importance of reading widely and passionately.
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Before I had published anything, I still hung out with people who liked to write. None of us had published, so there was no talk about the business, and there was probably a lot more angsty talk back then. But these days maybe there are some more laments about the culture, but I would say no.
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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
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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