It has meaning to me. And the longer I do this (bookselling, yes, of course, but also living if that isn't too awfully sentimental), the more I belie… - Gabrielle Zevin

the more I believe that this is what the point of it all is. To connect, my dear little nerd. Only connect.

It was odd to have something so personal out there in that way, but the good thing about art is that no one necessarily knows what you mean by it anyway.

The alternative to appropriation is a world in which artists only reference their own cultures."

"That's an oversimplification of the issue."

"The alternative to appropriation is a world where white European people make art about white European people with only white European references in it. Swap African or Asian or Latin or whatever culture you want for European. A world where everyone is blind and deaf to any culture or experience that is not their own. I hate that world don't you? I'm terrified of that world and I don't want to live in a that world, and as a mixed race person, I literally don't exist in it. My dad, who I barely knew, was Jewish. My mom was an American-born Korean. I was raised by Korean immigrant grandparents in Korea Town Los Angeles and as any mixed race person will tell you — to be half of two things is to be whole of nothing.

A.J. nods out of politeness, but he doesn't believe in random acts. He is a reader, and what he believes in is narrative construction. If a gun appears in act one, that gun had better go off by act three.