Author

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.

From 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.

From Chang-Rae Lee

I didn't leave Wall Street because the work was against my nature - I do have a pretty good head for numbers. I left because I had this love for writing.

From 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 its rhythms, perspectives, ideas.

From Chang-Rae Lee

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

From 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 beauty has rubbed off on me. Or perhaps that's why I enjoy teaching literature.

From 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.

From 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.

From Chang-Rae Lee

Unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tom Wolfe, I don't like proper dress while working. I like writing in pajama-like clothing, which eases and relaxes me and allows me to connect with the decidedly improper.

From 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.

From Chang-Rae Lee

Chang-Rae Lee

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