Quotes by Susan Choi

About Susan Choi:

Susan Choi is an American novelist. Choi was born in South Bend, Indiana to a Korean father and a Jewish mother. When she was nine years old, her parents divorced. She and her mother moved to Houston, Texas. Choi earned a B.A. in Literature from Yale University (1990) and an M.F.A. from Cornell University. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.
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

I think 'Gatsby' is hobbled, in part, by its status as a Great American Novel. People kind of roll their eyes before they've even opened it, treat it with a 'been there, done that' attitude. I know I did. It took me years to re-open the novel and see...

Susan Choi

It's pathetic, but I don't really remember my first time reading 'The Great Gatsby.' I must have read it in high school. I'm pretty sure I remember it being assigned, and I generally did the reading. But I don't remember having a reaction to the book...

Susan Choi

My youth was the most stubborn, peremptory part of myself. In my most relaxed moments, it governed my being. It pricked up its ears at the banter of eighteen-year-olds on the street. It frankly examined their bodies. It did not know its place: that m...

Susan Choi

Appetite knows what it craves, without cerebral embellishment. It tends not to waste any time laying hold of its tools. That was the thing I had recognised here: appetite. I recognised it precisely because, in a context like this, it was so unfamilia...

Susan Choi

I didn't grasp that desire and duty could rival each other, least of all that they most often did.

Susan Choi

I always try to avoid looking at the section where my books would be shelved, but I do know that my most reliable neighbor to the right is Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening', which is dispiriting. That's a book I don't want to re-read.

Susan Choi

Innocence as we understand it in our culture is very theatrical. The flip side is, if you're charming enough, you can get away with anything.

Susan Choi

I start with characters, and then I start writing, and then, if I'm lucky, things start to happen.

Susan Choi

I've never written a book with an outline or a predetermined theme. It's only in retrospect that themes or subjects become identifiable. That's the fun of it: discovering what's next. I'm often surprised by plot developments I would not have dreamed ...

Susan Choi

Graduate school is a really supportive environment, but in a way, it was only when that support vanished that I flourished.

Susan Choi

All sorts of creative communities are withering in New York because it's too hard to live here. It's ridiculous how expensive it is.

Susan Choi

The complexity of the world is so overwhelming and so present to everyone.

Susan Choi

I stopped writing short fiction early on - I was never really good at it, and I never liked the results. So I stopped trying to fit the material I was working with into these tidy little short fiction packages.

Susan Choi

I was the daughter of an immigrant, raised to feel that I needed to get excellent, flawless grades and a full scholarship and a graduate degree and a good job - all the stepping stones to conventional success.

Susan Choi

It's still funny for me to think of myself as someone who writes historical fiction because it seems like a really fusty, musty term, and yet it clearly applies.

Susan Choi

I've at times in my past been so unhappy, and thought, like, 'I would give anything for this not to be happening.' And, you know, as people say, time passes, and then you think, 'I'm kind of glad that happened to me.'

Susan Choi

If I'm not in the dead heat of working on something, I can end up spending tons and tons of time on the Web, and I hate it. I feel the same shame I did in grad school when I was pretty much addicted to reruns of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'. I wi...

Susan Choi

Author Bio

  • NameSusan Choi
  • DescriptionAmerican novelist
  • Born1969
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionNovelist
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Lambda Literary Award