Ken Liu quotes - page 2

I write speculative fiction, and in my view, speculative fiction is really just a very intense version of the work of literature in general. (Ken Liu)
Because I really love tax, tax topics actually feature quite a lot in my fiction of various lengths. I once wrote a science fiction short story centered around the idea of an alien tax code, and the idea that you can understand a society by parsing its tax code. View quote
Ken Liu
The novel that an author writes is often not the novel that the reader reads, and most of the 'messages' in a novel are put there by the reader. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. That's how literature functions. View quote
Ken Liu
It's true that misunderstanding and lack of understanding are often themes in my fiction, but I am grateful for the moments when true understanding is achieved, especially between writer and reader. It's miraculous. View quote
Ken Liu
Almost all of my stories can be understood to be elaborations on our drive to remake the world and our adjustments to the result. View quote
Ken Liu
The evolution of art is not only driven by artists, but by a conversation between the artists and the audience. View quote
Ken Liu
I think that what's unique about sci-fi - at least from the view of a lot of Chinese writers - is that sci-fi is least-rooted in the particular culture that they're writing from. View quote
Ken Liu
It's incredible to me that any two individual minds, trapped in their skulls and bodies and histories and unique experiences, are able to reach across the void between them and touch at all. View quote
Ken Liu
I'm often asked how I get ideas for my stories. The answer is there's no single way; every story is different. View quote
Ken Liu
My fiction occupies, actually, the very heart of American culture: this eternal question and struggle of what it means to be an American. View quote
Ken Liu
I'm conscious of the fact that I'm sort of a bridging figure. I have my Chinese literary heritage and cultural background, so I'm comfortable with these things, but at the same time, I have to navigate the Anglo-American tradition, which has a self-centred view of what Asia and what being Chinese means. (Ken Liu)
Most of us do not, in fact, read another language, and so when we read a translation, we have no way of knowing what has been changed or added. View quote
Ken Liu
It's kind of cool that I know of all this great science fiction being written in China, and most of it is not really well-known in the West. View quote
Ken Liu
In general, writers who talk to their colleagues and neighbors constantly about their own writing seem to me pretty insufferable. I try not to be that guy. View quote
Ken Liu
The Singaporean speculative tradition is different. Singapore doesn't conceive itself as the centre of the world or the one country that's going to save the world, so there's a different tone that comes out in the way speculative fiction is done. That's refreshing to read. View quote
Ken Liu
It's okay if you get rejected 20, 30 or 200 times... You don't need everyone to like your story - you just need one person who really likes your story. View quote
Ken Liu
If I end up having a novel that sells really well and that allows me to pay for health insurance and mortgage without having to work at a day job, that would be great. View quote
Ken Liu
Writers are naturally obsessed with books, the tangible artifacts of their labor. Even beyond the text, I love the physicality of books, the possibilities presented by their substance and form. View quote
Ken Liu
I've been writing long enough to know that fiction, as a rhetorical mode, works very differently from expository writing. If an author has a specific critique about contemporary society in mind, fiction tends not to be the best means to deliver that critique. View quote
Ken Liu
When I act as a translator, I am really doing a performance for my fellow Anglophone readers in the West. View quote
Ken Liu
Real history is far more complex and interesting than the simplistic summaries presented in Wikipedia articles. Knowing this allows you to question received wisdom, to challenge 'facts' 'everybody' knows to be true, and to imagine worlds and characters worthy of our rich historical heritage and our complex selves. (Ken Liu)
It is not possible to completely eliminate mediation between you as an observer and the history you are trying to understand. View quote
Ken Liu
The way that China has been described in Western narratives makes it hard to tell a story that will escape the stereotypes and allow people to perceive it fresh. View quote
Ken Liu