Celeste Ng

“Of course, as a kid, I had no idea what was practical: I wanted to be a paleontologist, then an astronaut.”

“Spend too much time alone with your own words, and your writing grows anemic, in dire need of a transfusion.”

“As soon as I could write, I was writing stories.”

“My parents came to America in the late 1960s because my father studied for a Ph.D. in Indiana. My mother joined him later. We had ancestors who came over at the turn of the century. One worked in a laundry, as is typical of Chinese-American immigrants.”

“Even if Pearl S. Buck hadn't spent most of her life in China, she'd have every right to write about it.”

“The proliferation of styles, genres, and media need not be the death knell of anything. Instead, it's a sign that our acceptance for variation and experimentation has become wider, our interests have become more diverse, and our appetites have become more omnivorous.”

“I wanted to write a book about people who have the best intentions and think - really, truly think - that they're doing the right thing. And then they realize that when those ideals come knocking at their windowsill, a lot of times they will suddenly disavow those ideals.”

“Narratively speaking, innocent misunderstandings are disappointing. Arbitrary events are also disappointing. The stories that really grab our attention involve not accidents but people doing things on purpose - to get things they desperately want.”

“As the Trump administration takes office - and we see acts of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination around the country - ask yourself, 'What's important to me? What do I care about? What have I benefitted from that I want to pay forward?' Then look for ways to spread help and hope.”

“There's this sense that whiteness is the default and does not need to be questioned. That you've got a race if you're black, or any kind of Asian, or any kind of Native American, but that you have no race if you are white.”

“Can fiction teach us? Absolutely. Fiction has the power to illustrate place, era, and atmosphere in vivid detail. But it is not Anthropology for Dummies.”

“The competitions between fiction and nonfiction, short and long, electronic and paper, are not battles in which there can be only one victor. After all, we exist in a world where more kinds of writing than ever are greeted with interest and enthusiasm.”

“I moved to Shaker Heights from Pittsburgh, PA, just before I turned 10.”

“I loved growing up in Shaker Heights, and I really miss it.”

“I was fortunate to have many teachers who encouraged me - one of the first was Dianne Derrick, my 5th grade teacher at Woodbury Elementary. She challenged us to write creatively and praised my work, but most importantly, she treated writing like it was important.”

“I'm really interested in how we understand each other - and whether we can understand each other.”

“Reading feeds writing: it presents you with new ideas to engage with.”

“Before my son was even born, he already had two shelves of books.”

“In 2011, I didn't read a single book.”

“It's incredibly rewarding to have people come up to me at readings and say, 'I'm not Chinese, but this is the relationship I have with my mother.' Or say, 'Your book made me think a lot about my parents, and I've decided to sign up for counseling.' That is mind-boggling.”