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

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Chang-Rae Lee
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: July 29
Academic
Novelist
University Teacher
Writer
Seoul Teukbyeolsi
Things
Term
Appealing
Stuff
Liked
Found
Complete
Littles
Terms
Find
Afraid
Little
Emotion
Availed
Feel
Liberty
Elasticity
Feels
Came
Tonal

More quotes by Chang-Rae Lee

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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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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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To be honest, Im not that much of a reader of Korean fiction, since so little is translated.
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Imagination might not be limitless. It's still tethered to the universe of what we know.
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Do not discount the psychic warmth of the hive.
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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.
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It is 'where we are' that should make all the difference, whether we believe we belong there or not.
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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 think the action is ninety-three percent, and the consideration is peppered throughout but pretty short... Once I start it, I feel as though I don't want to look over my shoulder too much. I want to trust the preparations I've made.
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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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Most people dont think about race as much as I do. They dont have to.
Chang-Rae Lee
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For sometimes you can't help but crave some ruin in what you love.
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
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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.
Chang-Rae Lee
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It's not that I wrote those details, but photos can give you the confidence that you have a real feel for the landscape. Then you can invent with a solid kind of faith, and recreate a feel and flavor of the time, and, one hopes, a tonality, a sense of that time having been lived by those characters.
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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.
Chang-Rae Lee