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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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" 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. "

Kevin Kwan

Today

Finding

House

" Every family is a crazy family. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" There's always been this tradition of satirizing these rich groups of people. "

" I was born on the island of Singapore, and I grew up there until I was 11 years old, when I was forcibly removed by my dad and planted into suburban Houston. I was in shock for the first year and then began to really love it - but didn't love it quite enough to stay. "

" Old money in Southeast Asia is much more discrete and low key. It's about not wearing brand names. It's about being invisible, almost. The billionaire can be taking the bus with you. "

" 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. "

" I'm not revealing any deep, hidden secret that there are wealthy people in Asia. "

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

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

" 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 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.' "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I think snobbery is one of the oldest customs in the world, and the rich will always find ways to rank each other and make themselves feel more special than others. "

" Warner Bros. is just this amazing historic studio that does great movies. "

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

" It would have been amazing to have been a student at Oxford during that golden moment in the 1910s, rubbing elbows with the likes of Aldous Huxley and T.E. Lawrence, before World War I shattered everything forever. "

" 'Crazy Rich Asians' may be fiction, but given the situation I grew up in, I've had an unparalleled view into the very real world it depicts. "

" No matter our background, we all have crazy families. "

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

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

" 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. "

" I have a photographic memory. "

Kevin Kwan

Photographic

Memory

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