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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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Chang-Rae Lee
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: July 29
Academic
Novelist
University Teacher
Writer
Seoul Teukbyeolsi
Past
Determines
Suggest
Determine
Absolutely
Wouldn
Present
Times
Born

More quotes by Chang-Rae Lee

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Imagination might not be limitless. It's still tethered to the universe of what we know.
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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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I really try to forget. I only look at my old works if there's an interview and someone asks me about it. Otherwise, it's not even in the rearview mirror.
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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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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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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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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.
Chang-Rae Lee
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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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Do not discount the psychic warmth of the hive.
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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.
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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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Most people dont think about race as much as I do. They dont have to.
Chang-Rae Lee
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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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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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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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For sometimes you can't help but crave some ruin in what you love.
Chang-Rae Lee
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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
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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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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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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