A biography for Mary H.K. Choihasn’t been written yet.
“In order to be a good emergency contact, you need a lot of friend-patience and empathy. Often, this comes from personal experience with anxiety, trauma, and depression.”
“There's a really generous readership with YA.”
“Never post anything personal to your Facebook wall. Or anyone else's, for that matter. Only snitches and teachers look at Facebook.”
“I love small-business owners, and I actually love the idea of vintage clothing, but I don't get when they pretend that the Internet doesn't exist or that other customers have never been to the whole rest of the country where you can rummage around and buy the same dang belt for a buck and a half.”
“I'm definitely an indoor kid who's turned into an inside person.”
“'Emergency Contact' is about the anxiousness that is inherent in meat space interactions.”
“I love how British people call Asian people 'oriental' unless they're talking about Indian people, who get to be called Asian.”
“You always feel like a hack and a fraud when you're writing. It's just how it goes.”
“I cannot quantify the physics of friendships and do not know exactly how much intense pressure can be applied before these glittery, brittle bonds break.”
“I am obsessed with Neil Patrick Harris on Twitter.”
“Privateers, military contractors - these aren't pirates. They have bosses. Real pirates are sellswords on missions of their own making.”
“Home is where I climb out of my mecha-suit-of-a-poised-persona and power down.”
“Bieber has taste and pull, which is as important to making quality pop as actual talent.”
“Join a Bikram-flow-yoga, Flywheel, or Pilates class so you can find spiritual oneness amid grunting socialite moms. Do whatever you want. Just, please, for the love of God, stop talking about it.”
“Home is where my house pants live. And they're hideous.”
“I find texting to be kind of a safe space.”
“From the first time I harangued my mother into buying me a pair of platform sandals at the irascible and persistent age of 11, I've worn heels.”
“If you're holding your iPhone, and it's the newest iteration of it, you're like, 'Oh, famous people have my phone. Captains of industry have my phone.' And that can be an intoxicating experience for someone who is going off to college for the first time.”
“I'm a big believer in puking out all your thoughts in a single sitting and getting some version of the work down, because the alternative just prolongs the agony. The first draft is hideous and ajskdlkdfksjdfslfjk, but it's just a map for where the big blocks go.”
“Teens are strange and magical.”