I’m interested in people who find themselves in places, either of their choosing or not, and who are forced to decide how best to live there. That feeling of both citizenship and exile, of always being an expatriate – with all the attendant problems and complications and delight. Chang-Rae Lee Read Quote
I don’t listen to music while writing; it seems to me I’m trying to make my own kind of music, and to have anything else going on is just noisy interference. Chang-Rae Lee Read Quote
I have a hard time revising sentences, because I spend an inordinate amount of time on each sentence, and the sentence before it, and the sentence after it. Chang-Rae Lee Read Quote
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 much anxiety about it. Chang-Rae Lee Read Quote
I’m not the sort of writer who can plan out things. Mostly I have no idea where I’m going. Chang-Rae Lee Read Quote
I wanted to write about the Korean War, but I had no entry into it that made the kind of sense it needs to make for a novelist. Chang-Rae Lee Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
I suppose people might consider me a ‘loose’ reader, as I seem willing to read anything of quality thinking and prose. Chang-Rae Lee Read Quote
