Susan Choi Quotes

United States, Novelist
January 28, 1969

Susan Choi is an American novelist. Choi was born in South Bend, Indiana to a Korean father and a Jewish mother. She attended public schools. When she was nine years old, her parents divorced. She and her mother moved to Houston, Texas. Choi earned a B.A. in Literature from Yale University (1990) and an M.F.A. from Cornell University. She resides in Brooklyn.

I've at times in my past been so unhappy, and thought, like, 'I would give anything for this not to be happening.' And, you know, as people say, time passes, and then you think, 'I'm kind of glad that happened to me.'

Susan Choi
- Past
- Unhappy
- Happening
All sorts of creative communities are withering in New York because it's too hard to live here. It's ridiculous how expensive it is.

Susan Choi

I start with characters, and then I start writing, and then, if I'm lucky, things start to happen.

Susan Choi
If I'm not in the dead heat of working on something, I can end up spending tons and tons of time on the Web, and I hate it. I feel the same shame I did in grad school when I was pretty much addicted to reruns of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'. I wish someone would make the Web just go away. Just remove it from the earth.

Susan Choi
- School
- Working
- Shame
I stopped writing short fiction early on - I was never really good at it, and I never liked the results. So I stopped trying to fit the material I was working with into these tidy little short fiction packages.

Susan Choi
- Writing
- Short
- Result
Innocence as we understand it in our culture is very theatrical. The flip side is, if you're charming enough, you can get away with anything.

Susan Choi
It's still funny for me to think of myself as someone who writes historical fiction because it seems like a really fusty, musty term, and yet it clearly applies.

Susan Choi
- Fiction
- Term
- Historical
I was the daughter of an immigrant, raised to feel that I needed to get excellent, flawless grades and a full scholarship and a graduate degree and a good job - all the stepping stones to conventional success.

Susan Choi
- Job
- Success
- Daughter

Graduate school is a really supportive environment, but in a way, it was only when that support vanished that I flourished.

Susan Choi
The complexity of the world is so overwhelming and so present to everyone.

Susan Choi
- World
- Present
- Everyone