Celeste Ng

“My husband's parents were both English teachers for decades.”

“אני פונה לאמנות כדי לקבל תקווה. האמנות הזכירה לי למה כדאי וצריך להמשיך בחיינו.”

“הרבה יותר קל לצייר קווים נקיים ובהירים מבלי לצלול לאזורים האפורים העכורים, בייחוד בזמנים של רגשות עזים.”

“אחד מהדברים שאני חושבת שהספרות יכולה לסייע בהם במיוחד: להראות שמה שנראה על פניו די פשוט וברור – הוא בעצם עתיר ניואנסים.”

“Rebecca Solnit is a clarion voice of reason.”

“In kindegarten, he had learned how to make a bruise stop hurting: you pressed it over and over with your thumb. the first times it hurt so much your eyes watered. The second time it hurt a little less. The tenth time, it was barely an ache.”

“Local politics is just as important as national - and often easier to influence.”

“With the first novel, I had to tell myself, 'No one is ever going to read it, so you might as well just write it.' With the second, I was pretty sure someone was going to read it.”

“My mother ended up getting a Ph.D. of her own, in chemistry, and eventually became a tenured professor.”

“It's easy to feel helpless - like you can't fight the tide. But remember: small actions can have a huge impact, and one person like you can inspire others to action.”

“I lose pens a lot, so I don't use fancy ones.”

“I am a first-generation Chinese-American; my husband is white. We have a little boy, so I think a lot about what it's like when people from different cultures and backgrounds start families, and how the world sees them. Most of my friends are in interracial relationships, and I just wonder what the world is going to look like for their children.”

“Writing is like shouting into the world. So when someone shouts back, it's a really big deal. To have people who read hundreds and hundreds of books a year say, 'Hey, we thought this was really great,' that's a huge self-esteem boost.”

“In my own work, when I start off writing a scene, I don't know which physical details are going to turn out to be meaningful. But, inevitably, certain images will stand out - you start to decide which ones are important as you go.”

“But at that moment she had known, with a certainty she would never feel about anything else in her life, that it was right, that she wanted this man in her life. Something inside her said, He understands. What it's like to be different.”

“When reading fiction, we cannot automatically assume that what we read is fact.”

“I think I'm good at metaphors and descriptions. Plot doesn't come naturally to me, so I work really hard at it.”

“No reader wants to sit through the same scene four times in a row, unless they're radically different.”

“For the first three years of his life, my son insisted on hearing 'Goodnight Moon' before bedtime. Like most babies, he was not a good sleeper by disposition - but reading seemed to help, and this book specifically became part of his whole wind-down ritual.”

“Every single day, authors read at bookstores and libraries - and coffeeshops and bars - all over the country. And these readings are amazing: you get to hear the book in the author's own voice, ask questions, and meet the writer. For free.”