Almost all of western literature is about talk…There's this great line in Beckett: keep talking, you're winning. And somehow I wanted to subvert that… - Chang-Rae Lee

One of the things that's so frustrating about it is that people who are Asian-American and who are non Asian-American assume that sometimes. And I think sometimes the implication is that “Oh, you really didn't have to create that, that was just something that you recounted.” You know, that recounted stories are much more easy and simple to write than stuff that's completely made up. And I think that's one of the things that sometimes, particularly ethnic American writers face because they write about people who look like them and then people automatically assume that it's people who are them or someone in their family…

Even though I went to Exeter and Yale, and I enjoyed all the trappings of those places, I think at the same time – and maybe it's because I'm an immigrant kid and not white – there was always this other consciousness; that is, I was conscious of everything that was going on. And I was observing. Some people just ARE, because the temperature of the water is exactly the temperature of their body…But my temperature is always off, a little bit. And I have to note it. And I always did, from a very young age. I don't know if that's my character or upbringing or both.

I think back to particular librarians when I was in elementary and middle school. My parents were immigrants, and my mother didn’t really speak English. Basically, I was raised in the library. Those librarians and a few teachers in high school and college and even graduate school gave me not just knowledge but also encouragement and, sometimes, a reality check.