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" The omniscient narrator is a bizarre technique, when you think about it, and no one uses it much anymore. But for the novels I want to write, it's the only approach that makes sense to me. "

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" I have accepted the fact that I don't work very quickly, that I have been rejected a lot as a writer, and that what I do is unusual, so I just have to accept the terms and that it's going to take longer. It is what it is. "

Min Jin Lee

Work

Going

" I was very interested in history, but I also thought, you know, history is not that interesting sometimes, and it can feel a bit medicinal. "

" Koreans are worried about the Japanese right-wing people, who tend to be against foreigners. But the Koreans in Japan aren't even foreigners. They are essentially culturally Japanese. If a family has lived in Japan for three generations, it's absurd to see them as foreigners. "

" I think it's not an accident that you don't have that many Asian American women writers who are breaking out. I don't think it's an accident that you don't have that many Asian American writers, either women or men. I don't think that immigrants are encouraged to become artists. That's very gendered and racialized and ethnicized. "

" We're so willing to dehumanize entire populations in order for us to conveniently go along with our lives. We know exactly one North Korean, for example. The rest of them, we don't know - but it makes it very easy to bomb North Korea if we pretend they're all one person. Literature makes it harder to dehumanize people in this way. "

" We're always observing, and we're cautious people. We really want attention, but at the same time, we're ashamed of wanting attention. All those bizarre qualities of being outside are necessary for being a writer. "

" I had liver disease. I'm completely cured now, but I thought about if I died from liver cancer, what my life would look like. I followed this wish of being a fiction writer. "

" As a woman of colour, as a person who is a minority, I believe its important that other people know about my language and I don't necessarily have to explain. In the same way, when I read 19th-century literature and if I have to understand a Latin phrase or a French phrase, it is incumbent upon me to learn it. "

" One thing that struck me in my study of history is how people are excluded. I don't mean just racial minorities or women. Pretty much all poor people who don't have documents are excluded from history and its records. People who were illiterate usually didn't leave any primary documents. "

" I don't hold any contempt for people who are practicing law. I know how hard it is, I know how hard they work, and I know some of them who are so unhappy with it. "

" I think that the shame of being different is very painful for a lot of people. "

" One of the nice things about getting older is that you come to understand that you can integrate multiple aspects of your life together. When you're young, you think everything has to be binary, as that's exactly how you feel at that age. "

" I've often felt like an outsider, not necessarily because I'm Korean, an immigrant, or female. I think writers are odd people. "

Min Jin Lee

Outsider

People

" I love most New England towns. "

" I thought, 'Nobody wants this book, and I'm an idiot for having worked on it so hard.' But to succeed in writing, you must be willing to look stupid for a long time. 'Pachinko' took so long because I got it wrong so many times. "

" You really should respect other people's work because work is hard-won. "

" We have huge holes in our education in the West. I think that we have little knowledge of Asian history. If you ask a well-educated, modern Western person about World War II, most will think that the theatre of war was only in Europe. But it's known that the Pacific War was going on concurrently, and we don't know anything about it. "

" I do have love for Japan. At the same time, I have a complex relationship with Japan because I'm Korean. But I think it shows the strength of a country when you can talk about the past transparently. "

" When my family was living in Tokyo, there was a year when we couldn't go back to the States for Thanksgiving, and we went to Seoul. Mandu is a highly satisfying substitute for turkey and trimmings. "

" For me, whatever you write about should be worthy of your attention, worthy of your gifts. That's very important. "

" Koreans love to dance; they love to sing. If you actually know Koreans, you see how absurd the stereotype of the 'Asian robot' is. They love to laugh - they're very affectionate. Maybe because of their history of oppression, when they feel you are part of their tribe, they are intensely loyal. I love that about Koreans! "

" As an artist, my wheelhouse is 19th-century literature. I want to write realist novels in a Victorian sense, and the writers I admire in that style tend to do omniscient narration. "

" After I quit being a lawyer in '95, I was having a lot of trouble writing. Then I read somewhere that Willa Cather read a chapter of the Bible every day before she started work. I thought, 'Okay, I'll try it.' Before each writing session, I started to read the Bible like a writer, thinking about language, character, and themes. "

" I find being an adult very difficult. Being an adult artist, Asian American, incredibly difficult. Or trying, anyway. "

" Pachinko, like all gambling, is rigged. The house always wins. It's a central metaphor of life. It's rigged, but you keep playing. "

" I think that social migration to another economic class requires a kind of negotiating with yourself. And also, there's so much ambivalence in your heart about who you are and who you're really not. "

" I believe there is meaning in life. I believe there is good and evil. "

" Education is a beautiful, liberating thing, but I think that tying in education and status, and the need to do well at every cost, is toxic. "

" I got married when I was 24 and met my husband when I was 22, so what I know about men in a personal experience could literally fill an index card. "

" Twenty-five million people who live in North Korea are denied freedom in every respect of their lives. In short, they are hostages. Imagine 25 million hostages. "