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" Certainly, living in the U.S., as I have for over two decades, you see how Asians are portrayed in the media... I didn't see myself represented, you know, when I used to look at ads on TV. "
Kevin Kwan
Myself
You
Know
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" I know an elderly society matron in Singapore who would rather walk in the scorching sun for blocks on end rather than have her chauffeur drive into the Central Business District at peak hour and pay the $1.50 surcharge. "
Kevin Kwan
Walk
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" I'm not revealing any deep, hidden secret that there are wealthy people in Asia. "
Kevin Kwan
People
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" My father grew up in a life of extreme privilege. "
Kevin Kwan
Up
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Father
" It's not normal to go into a house and see a pond in the middle of the living room full of baby sharks. It's not normal to go to someone's garage and see a private plane. "
Kevin Kwan
Someone
Baby
Go
" Asian literature is evolving with the people. It's always a reflection on what's happening to the culture at large. "
Kevin Kwan
Culture
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People
" I love Netflix and Amazon and watching movies on streamers as much as the next person. "
Kevin Kwan
Person
Netflix
Love
" In Singapore, there may be 50 old-money families, but you wouldn't know them to look at them. "
Kevin Kwan
You
Them
Singapore
" Writers often say that characters begin to write themselves, and I never used to believe that. I always thought that was complete hogwash. "
Kevin Kwan
Always
Never
Say
" 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. "
Kevin Kwan
Ceiling
Go
Leather
" I have a photographic memory. "
Kevin Kwan
Photographic
Memory
" 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. "
Kevin Kwan
Asia
Live
Rich
" 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. "
Kevin Kwan
Never
Own
Hollywood
" Living in the West, you see how there's only two versions of how Asian men are supposed to be. Either they're very nice, yuppie husbands with children in ads, or they're IT geeks. "
Kevin Kwan
Children
You
Living
" 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.' "
Kevin Kwan
Shoes
She
Clothes
" My father went to boarding school in Sydney when he was 14. "
Kevin Kwan
He
Sydney
Boarding
" When my first novel, 'Crazy Rich Asians,' was published in 2013, many readers were astonished to learn that in Asia, there were women who dressed in couture from morning till night. "
Kevin Kwan
Morning
Asia
Crazy
" 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. "
Kevin Kwan
Live
Village
Gossip
" I wanted to explore what all this new-found wealth means for the different generations of Chinese who have to live together in this place that is transforming at warp speed into the richest country on the planet. "
Kevin Kwan
Wealth
Together
Speed
" They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, but there's such a thing as believability when you're writing a novel. "
Kevin Kwan
Writing
Truth Is
Than
" My grandmother used to get her shoes made in Paris in the '30s, and they would be shipped to her in Singapore. "
Kevin Kwan
Singapore
Grandmother
Shoes
" At least when it comes to food, there's no snobbery in Singapore. "
Kevin Kwan
Singapore
Snobbery
Food
" Warner Bros. is just this amazing historic studio that does great movies. "
Kevin Kwan
Great
Movies
Amazing
" 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. "
Kevin Kwan
Modern
World
Want
" 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. "
Kevin Kwan
Women
Strong
Society
" 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. "
Kevin Kwan
World
People
Economy
" 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. "
Kevin Kwan
Story
Perspective
Looking