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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. "

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" I love romantic comedies more than anything. "

" When cultural movements happen, it's so beyond your control. "

" 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. "

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

" At least when it comes to food, there's no snobbery in Singapore. "

" My golden dream was to move to New York and live in the Village and become that cool rebel beatnik Jack Kerouac. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 'China rich' is the new 'crazy rich.' It's a new level of outrageousness. It comes from this world where overnight fortunes have been made, but the fortunes are so ginormous compared to anything we've ever seen in the history of the world. "

" To me, families are fascinating. I choose to explore it through comedy and through comic situations. "

" I have a photographic memory. "

" People are often disappointed when they meet me because I'm not this giant, flamboyant - you know, I don't wear sequined jackets. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" Even if they're not Asian or super rich... everyone has a nagging mother. Everyone has that obnoxious uncle, or that cousin who's a bit too snobby. "

" 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 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 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. "

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

" I'm naturally a shy, quiet person. "

" People have always been fascinated by the foibles of the wealthy and privileged. "

" All Americans knew was 'The Joy Luck Club' and children of dry cleaners trying to assimilate. The Asia that I was seeing was a world of people who are incredibly sophisticated, and I wanted to represent that side. "