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The decaying that had dragged on for too long had only turned tragedy into nuisance death, when it strikes, better completes its annihilating act on the first try.

Yiyun Li

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Yiyun Li
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: November 4
Journalist
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Peking
Trying
Nuisance
Long
Strikes
Tragedy
Turned
Death
Annihilating
Better
Completes
Firsts
Decaying
First
Dragged

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You can write about a country without taking a stand, but you cannot write about a country without noting that there's history, and that there's politics going on. To me, that's the same if you write about America. You don't have to write about politics, but the politics have to be present in the characters.
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A real dreamer must have a mutual trust with time.
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What a long way it is from one life to another: yet why write if not for that distance if things can be let go, every before replaced by an after.
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Your characters are always your children. And while you are writing, you're keeping them safe. Now they're ready to go into the world and it's sad. I'm happy with the way the novel came out but all the characters' ending really saddened me.
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I would never describe a cloud as 'fluffy'—in Chinese or in English.
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I always tell my students to go back after a hundred pages and rewrite from the beginning. It's really harder if you've already finished four hundred pages and realize the first hundred aren't working.
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Horrible that you could write in a language so well, but have nothing meaningful to say.
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No one is immune from either taking the wrong action or not taking action at all, but the sense that something is completely out of a person's control is stronger in China.
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Overall there may be less censorship in America than in China, but censorship and self-censorship are not only from political pressure, but also pressures from other places in a society.
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Every place is a good place, only time goes wrong.
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She wonders if this is what people call falling in love, the desire to be with someone for every minute of the rest of her life so strong that sometimes she is frightened of herself.
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Regarding heroism, I grew up in a culture where you learn about heroes and heroines all the time. In a way, when you call someone a hero or heroine, it's the same as calling them a villain.
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I think our eyes are trained to look for what we want to see.
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Chinese people don't care about freedom, but they do care about justice.
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In film, you have to present everything on the screen so it's the opposite of what I usually do with storytelling. It forced me to think about how people walk, where they sit at that moment. With Princess of Nebraska, it was just fun to watch because the movie was so far from the story. It was very much a different story.
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Even the most innocent person, when cornered, is capable of a heartless crime.
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To write about a struggle amidst the struggling: one must hope that the muddling will end someday.
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One easy mistake to make with the first novel is to expand the short story. Some things are better as a story you cannot dilute things into a novel. I think the first hundred pages of a novel are very important. That's where you set things up: the world, the characters. Once you've set that up, it'll be much easier.
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There is a certain amount of politeness here in America, which is probably more than just politeness.
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Some people in China don't look at freedom of speech as an abstract ideal, but more as a means to an end.
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