Kevin Kwan Quotes
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People have always been fascinated by the foibles of the wealthy and privileged.
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'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.
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When cultural movements happen, it's so beyond your control.
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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.
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At least when it comes to food, there's no snobbery in Singapore.
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People are often disappointed when they meet me because I'm not this giant, flamboyant - you know, I don't wear sequined jackets.
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My mother likes to say that I was conceived to shop - not just born to shop. My whole life as a child was following her and her sister and friends around on her shopping trips.
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My grandparents were far more English in their manners than they were Chinese. For example, we spoke English at home, had afternoon tea every day, and my grandfather, who attended university in Scotland, would smoke his pipe after dinner.
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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.
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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.
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I love romantic comedies more than anything.
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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.
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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.
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I have a photographic memory.
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My father came from old money. There was less of an expectation for the children to earn a living.
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My father grew up in a life of extreme privilege.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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My father went to boarding school in Sydney when he was 14.
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Every family is a crazy family.
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The most important thing to keep in mind is the incredible diversity of talent that's out there - there are so many great actors from all over Asia, from Singapore and Hong Kong to the Philippines and Mainland China, not to mention many great Asian-American actors who are eager for fun and challenging roles.
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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.