“ Does any program really improve anybody, as much as simply identifying them? And, after identifying them, not ruining them? Chang-rae Lee
“ I often think that the prime directive for me as a teacher of writing is akin to that for a physician, which is this: do no harm. Chang-rae Lee
“ It’s perhaps more laudable to simply keep heading out into the world, than always tilting to leave one’s mark on it. Chang-rae Lee
“ Does any (MFA) program really improve anybody, as much as simply identifying them? And, after identifying them, not ruining them? Chang-rae Lee
“ He should have had more faith in himself rather than give in to his weaker qualities, in particular his overeagerness to please and aversion to conflict and a lifelong infatuation with hope, which had… Chang-rae Lee
“ It was in the work that she came closest to finding herself, by which we don’t mean gaining “self-knowledge” or understanding one’s “true nature” but rather how at some point you can see most plainly… Chang-rae Lee
“ In this difficult era the most valuable commodity is the unfailing turn of the hours and how they retrieve for us the known harbor of yesterday. Chang-rae Lee
“ Her endeavor was misguided and wrong and maybe plain crazy, akin to someone waking up one day and deciding he’s going to scale Kilimanjaro because he can’t stop imagining the view from the top, the pi… Chang-rae Lee
“ Imagination might not be limitless. It's still tethered to the universe of what we know. Chang-rae Lee
“ For no matter the shadows of an age, the picture of a young couple in love, we are told, speaks most luminously of the future, as the span of that passion makes us believe we can overleap any walls, o… Chang-rae Lee
“ What hasty preperations we make for our future. Think of it: it seems almost tragic, the things we’re sure we ought to bring along. We pack too heavy with what we hope we’ll use, and too light of what… Chang-rae Lee
“ But maybe it’s the laboring that gives you shape. Might the most fulfilling times be those spent solo at your tasks, literally immersed or not, when you are able to uncover the smallest surprises and… Chang-rae Lee
