Susan Choi Quotes

#1. I didn't grasp that desire and duty could rival each other, least of all that they most often did.

Susan Choi

#2. Graduate school is a really supportive environment, but in a way, it was only when that support vanished that I flourished.

Susan Choi

#3. I start with characters, and then I start writing, and then, if I'm lucky, things start to happen.

Susan Choi

#4. I've at times in my past been so unhappy, and thought, like, 'I would give anything for this not to be happening.' And, you know, as people say, time passes, and then you think, 'I'm kind of glad that happened to me.'

Susan Choi

#5. I think 'Gatsby' is hobbled, in part, by its status as a Great American Novel. People kind of roll their eyes before they've even opened it, treat it with a 'been there, done that' attitude. I know I did. It took me years to re-open the novel and see how much I'd missed.

Susan Choi

#6. The complexity of the world is so overwhelming and so present to everyone.

Susan Choi

#7. Something crossed his face, a pure motion like wind over water
I couldn't have guessed what emotion it was. "I'll miss you," he said.

Susan Choi

#8. Innocence as we understand it in our culture is very theatrical. The flip side is, if you're charming enough, you can get away with anything.

Susan Choi

#9. The most shocking act, closely examined, is just a louder version of some habitual gesture.

Susan Choi

#10. It's still funny for me to think of myself as someone who writes historical fiction because it seems like a really fusty, musty term, and yet it clearly applies.

Susan Choi

#11. I was the daughter of an immigrant, raised to feel that I needed to get excellent, flawless grades and a full scholarship and a graduate degree and a good job - all the stepping stones to conventional success.

Susan Choi

#12. All sorts of creative communities are withering in New York because it's too hard to live here. It's ridiculous how expensive it is.

Susan Choi

#13. The very moment I admitted we were flirting, I lost patience for it.

Susan Choi

#14. I always try to avoid looking at the section where my books would be shelved, but I do know that my most reliable neighbor to the right is Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening', which is dispiriting. That's a book I don't want to re-read.

Susan Choi

#15. I stopped writing short fiction early on - I was never really good at it, and I never liked the results. So I stopped trying to fit the material I was working with into these tidy little short fiction packages.

Susan Choi

#16. I couldn't let you believe we'd keep going, when we'd already lasted too long.

Susan Choi