Quotes by Chang-Rae Lee

About Chang-Rae Lee:

Chang-rae Lee is a Korean American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Princeton University, where he has served as the director of Princeton's Program in Creative Writing.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

My writing day follows my family's day. I get a good few hours in the mornings when the kids are out of the house. And I don't work at night any more. I like to see my family.

Chang-Rae Lee

In my teaching, I try to expose my students to the widest range of aesthetic possibilities, so I'll offer them stories from Anton Chekhov to Denis Johnson, from Flannery O'Connor to A.M. Homes, and perhaps investigating all that strange variation of ...

Chang-Rae Lee

I don't feel uncomfortable in America, but every once in a while, I'm reminded that people don't see me the way I see me. It doesn't change my life, but it gives me a consciousness about it.

Chang-Rae Lee

For me, that's always been one of the great charms of the first person: we gain access to a very personal, private kind of music.

Chang-Rae Lee

A novel, even a social realist one, can't simply be a comprehensive rendering of what is. A novel requires a special angle or approach, whether in structure or language or theme, to justify itself.

Chang-Rae Lee

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.

Chang-Rae Lee

My parents - my mother, particularly - were very focused on our succeeding. I loved my parents, and was very grateful to them for everything, and I didn't want to disappoint them.

Chang-Rae Lee

I think my parents recognised that I'd always wanted to be a writer, and so they didn't think that this was some idle, faddish wish on my part.

Chang-Rae Lee

I suppose people might consider me a 'loose' reader, as I seem willing to read anything of quality thinking and prose.

Chang-Rae Lee

Like most people, I'm fascinated by characters who are completely flawed personalities, riven by anguish and doubt, and are psychologically suspect.

Chang-Rae Lee

I can put together a pretty decent meal from whatever happens to be in the refrigerator and the pantry. I like the challenge of this sort of improvisation, the rigor of limitation and sometimes having to take a risk.

Chang-Rae Lee

I'm not the sort of writer who can plan out things. Mostly I have no idea where I'm going.

Chang-Rae Lee

We read and remember certain writers because they offer distinctive voices and perspectives, because they've given themselves over completely and passionately to their obsessions while vigorously ignoring everything else.

Chang-Rae Lee

I don't believe complete assimilation is possible, at least not for anyone who has an active, open mind. Every step, every entry into the flows of existence can be seen as a beginning, a commencement of a brand new way of seeing oneself in the world....

Chang-Rae Lee

We arrived the way most emigrant families did. My father came first, and the rest of us - my mother, my sister and me - followed a year later.

Chang-Rae Lee

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.

Chang-Rae Lee

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

We know the point of the 2010 Census is to count us, one by one, to tally every last resident, but the massive project of course has more prying, if limited, interests.

Chang-Rae Lee

To be honest, I'm not that much of a reader of Korean fiction, since so little is translated.

Chang-Rae Lee

I'll read pretty much anywhere and anytime, but for a while now, I've really enjoyed reading on flights, especially the longer hauls, when I'm unplugged from everything and can completely immerse myself in the world of a book and submit happily to it...

Chang-Rae Lee

In my other books, things do happen, but they are kind of bookends to the real action, which for me was an exploration of consciousness. Not that I don't get into the consciousness of the people in 'The Surrendered,' but you could say there's not as ...

Chang-Rae Lee

Author Bio

  • NameChang-Rae Lee
  • DescriptionNovelist
  • BornJuly 29, 1965
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionAuthor; Novelist
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Rome Prize