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" As a child, I didn't even realize I was Chinese. I was Singaporean, but my identity was wrapped up in the culture I was experiencing every day. "

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" Asian literature is evolving with the people. It's always a reflection on what's happening to the culture at large. "

" There are old-money Asians that would never be caught dead with a Chanel handbag or sporting anything that has a label it. "

" I have a photographic memory. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I have pictures of my grandmother from the 1920s and '30s in avant-garde dresses that looked like they could have come from the House of Worth or Lucien Lelong. She would never say if they were couture, but I do recall her telling me, 'All my clothes and shoes came from Paris.' "

" Couture occupies the uppermost stratosphere of fashion. It is the holy of holies, as only about 2,000 women globally are fortunate enough to wear these precious garments tailored to their exact measurements, making it perhaps the most exclusive club in the world. "

" My father grew up in a life of extreme privilege. "

" I sort of wanted to reveal this other side of Asia: Southeast Asia, where the Chinese have been wealthy for generations and have different ways of relating to money. I wanted to sort of reveal this world to readers. "

" I love romantic comedies more than anything. "

" I come from an old establishment family from Singapore. "

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

" 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. "

" If I were to generalize a bit, I would say that the ultra rich in Asia live on a scale that far surpasses the wealthy in the U.S. or Europe. "

" I go to Shenzhen, China, and am taken to a vast luxury spa with a hundred leather recliners and a hundred accompanying plasma screen televisions bolted to the ceiling. "

" My father went to boarding school in Sydney when he was 14. "

" Especially in the West, people want to understand Asia on a deeper level because it's become the engine of the world economy, like it or not. "

" A lot of the people who live the lives of 'Crazy Rich Asians' don't see the humour of their lives simply because this is just who they are. Even though I'm from that part of the world, I'm no longer part of that world. "

" 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 grew up in a household where there were really, really strong matriarchal characters. I think that's true of many Asian households. People tend to think of Asia as a misogynistic society or a society where men rule. At least in my experience, the women rule the household; the women rule the social scene. The men often become very useless. "

" 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. "

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

" In Singapore, there may be 50 old-money families, but you wouldn't know them to look at them. "

" I met a Shanghai photographer who finds these old streets and matches the French names to what they are today. I was able to find my grandfather's block, and just walking the same streets and finding his house was deeply moving. I finally felt connected to China. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" I've always been drawn to the Edwardian period in England. To me, it seems like such a fascinating time, when the British Empire was at the height of its powers and the strict mores of the Victorian age were dissipating into the decadence of King Edward's reign. "

" 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. "

" One of the dreams on my wish list is to spend more time in Thailand. "