A Quote by Celeste Ng

Comparing Asian writers mainly to other Asian writers implies that we're all telling the same story - a disappointingly reductive view.

Celeste Ng

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Celeste Ng
American - Novelist
Born: 1980

I always feel like people misunderstand the difference between an Asian story and an Asian-American story. That's completely different, too. I have friends who grew up in Asia, and our experiences are so different. Even though we might look the same, I feel like being Asian and then being Asian-American is completely different.

Arden Cho

I think it's not an accident that you don't have that many Asian American women writers who are breaking out. I don't think it's an accident that you don't have that many Asian American writers, either women or men. I don't think that immigrants are encouraged to become artists. That's very gendered and racialized and ethnicized.

Min Jin Lee

It's very difficult to be asking other people for opportunities. It is much more empowering to be creating opportunities, to be the one who is saying, 'Look, I'm going to take this from the ground up and create a story that is meaningful to me as an Asian American and cast it with Asian Americans and have Asian Americans writing it.'

Daniel Dae Kim

Let's stop reflexively comparing Chinese writers to Chinese writers, Indian writers to Indian writers, black writers to black writers. Let's focus on the writing itself: the characters, the language, the narrative style.

Celeste Ng

I sense a kind of fear of writing black or Asian characters from non-ethnic writers, who perhaps feel that they don't know the culture and therefore can't write about it. By and large, if there's an Asian character, I might get a call. But if the character is called 'Philip,' the chances are I won't.

Sanjeev Bhaskar

I'm definitely more Asian than a lot of people who have never been to Asia. But by blood and by race, they instantly say I deserve to be Asian. I've worked really hard to be Asian, and I think I'm Asian enough.

Henry Golding

Usually when you're Asian and you're on set, you're the only Asian there. Either you're the token Asian or you're the Asian sidekick.

Jimmy O. Yang

I think all writers are mainly writing for themselves because I believe that most writers are writing based on a need to write. But at the same time, I feel that writers are, of course, writing for their readers, too.

Amy Bloom

When you're the only Asian in the room, the last thing you want to do is to point out you're Asian. And be the Asian dude.

Jon M. Chu

There are no Asian leading men in Hollywood. There's not an Asian Ryan Gosling or an Asian Brad Pitt.

Ross Butler

And so it became a priority for me to make sure that all Asian Canadians or Asian Americans or wherever you are, Asian Australians, felt like they belonged.

Simu Liu

In British TV, if there is an Asian character, there usually has to be a reason for them to be Asian, whereas in America, you have a lot more roles where the person just happens to be Asian.

Jessica Henwick

I hope my daughter will be able to see shows starring Asian people that has nothing to do with an Asian story.

Ruthie Ann Miles

With 'To All the Boys,' it's not an Asian rom-com. We tried to tell the coming-of-age story of a 16-year-old girl who just happens to be Asian.

Lana Condor

That 'writers write' is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.

Renata Adler

Does people not asking me about Asian American literature mean they don't see it as its own literary tradition? I certainly believe in it as its own literary tradition, because your race plays a great factor in how you are seen by the world, and how you see the world; the fact that I'm an Asian American isn't incidental to who I am as a writer. Where it becomes difficult is defining what, if anything identifiable at all, makes an Asian American book an Asian American book, other than the fact of its creator being Asian. And I'd argue that there is nothing identifiable beyond that.

Hanya Yanagihara

A Quote by Celeste Ng

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