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" As a child, I could bike down the hill from my house and grab an ice-cold bottle of soda from the neighborhood grocer, which was nothing more than a corrugated metal shack run by two Indian men clad in sarongs. "

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" I came from a family of extremely old money, and so by the time I was born, there was really just a trickle of money left. "

Kevin Kwan

Family

Time

Born

" Writers often say that characters begin to write themselves, and I never used to believe that. I always thought that was complete hogwash. "

" The most important thing to keep in mind is the incredible diversity of talent that's out there - there are so many great actors from all over Asia, from Singapore and Hong Kong to the Philippines and Mainland China, not to mention many great Asian-American actors who are eager for fun and challenging roles. "

" The China Rich seem to be spending on a scale that's just beyond anything we've ever seen before. They are building and buying an insane amount of luxury residences around the world, commissioning huge flying palaces from Boeing, and paying ridiculous amounts for art. "

" In Asia, it's customary to get together with your entire extended family on a regular basis, and it's all rife with politics. "

" I love Netflix and Amazon and watching movies on streamers as much as the next person. "

" There's so much emphasis on the economic might of China, of Southeast Asia, Asian 'Super Tigers' and things like that. But nobody was really looking from the perspective of a family story, of these individuals. "

" I have a photographic memory. "

Kevin Kwan

Photographic

Memory

" They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, but there's such a thing as believability when you're writing a novel. "

" My books are comedies; I want to take my readers on a jet-setting romp, make them laugh, make them swoon at the beautiful settings, and maybe even make their mouths water at all the food. "

" It's human nature when you first make your big fortune to want to show off a bit. I don't begrudge that whatsoever. "

" Every family is a crazy family. "

" I do believe that peoples' natures can be changed, and they have to be changed if we want to live in this modern world and be a part of it. "

" I grew up at a time in Singapore - the '70s and '80s - where it was still possible to go riding around the island barefoot. And I was one of these kids that was just climbing trees and running around the neighbourhood. "

" The idea of Asian ascendancy has entered public culture. "

" I would not call my family 'traditional Chinese.' We were more what I would term the Colonial Chinese. "

" I grew up with a posh English accent, and all my aunts sounded as if they came out of a Merchant Ivory movie. "

" I spent the first 12 years of my life growing up in Singapore. Back then, in the early '80s, it was still a tropical island at the tip of the Malay Peninsula striving to shine on the world stage. "

" I live in New York, but I still get the village gossip. My apartment is a crash pad for so many Singaporean cousins and friends. "

" I was born in Singapore, and I lived there until I was 12. I had a very fortunate upbringing. "

" Growing up in Singapore, I wasn't allowed to visit China. So when I was finally able to go there after the country began opening up to tourism in the 1990s, I found it to be utterly astounding. "

" Canada has become such a staging area for Chinese money. "

" I wanted to introduce a contemporary Asia to a North American audience. "

" The characters that populate my books are global nomads in their own right, keeping multiple homes around the world and constantly jet-setting to new places. "

" I moved to New York and went to art school at Parsons School of Design. Became a photographer. Became a creative consultant. "

" Such huge money has been made in China - it can be hundreds of millions in a year - and there's a need to validate it by showing what they can buy and how much of it. "

" I've recently rediscovered Anthony Trollope. I used to read him back in college, and a friend turned me on to a whole new series of his work, 'The Palliser Series.' It's a series of seven or eight books. "

Kevin Kwan

Back

Work

" I really don't keep an outline; I don't organize in any way. I just write. "

" Hollywood is a whole other level of crazy. I've never met so many assistants who have assistants. It's a stratified society on its own. "

" If you're the water boiler king of China, you're selling a billion water boilers. "