Immigrants To The United States

"Stan's a good boy, but he's got a marrying complex."

"Who are these people? What are they? I don't understand this business of their being billed as 'stars'. What are they stars of? Who made them stars? As far as I can see, they don't do anything but read some questions from cards or a machine. The terrible thing about some of them is that they think they can act or read funny lines, for God's sake. And even worse than that is the fact that the audience seems to accept them on these terms. These people aren't talents, or even bad talents. They are simply non-talents."

"He could lift that eyebrow, and I'd break up."

"About those boys, I don't care how rough you treat them. I can't tell you how much it hurt me to do those pictures, and how ashamed I am of them. We wouldn't have done them if we didn't have to eat. I kept thinking that sooner or later they would let us do the pictures in our own way, but it just got worse and worse, and we couldn't take it any more. I didn't always see eye to eye with Roach, but for the most part he left us alone, and I'll always be grateful to Hal for that. But those Fox people! You can give it to them good."

"He keeps imitating himself, but he has much talent and I think in time he will do first rate comedy. I hope so. But he he's going to have to learn artistic discipline."

"Something rare these days—a wit."

"If they ever do a film of my life—and I hope they won't—I'd like Dick to play me. He's one of the very, very few comedians around who knows how to use his body for real.comedy."

"I hope that the motto can be blue and grey, showing two derbies with these words superimposed: "Two Minds Without a Single Thought.""

"So terribly funny. He can still make me laugh like crazy after all these years."

"Stan Laurel is a slap-stick comedian who really can act, and it is not only due to the situations which are given him that the fun is raised, but by the use he makes of them. He occasionally copies little actions used by Charlie Chaplin, but he does not literally imitate him, and since he has found it necessary to copy someone, he could not have found a better model."

"A real craftsman. He knows what consistent comedy characterization is. The only criticism I have is that once in a while he holds after his laughs too long. He milks those holds on occasion and he shouldn't."

"Ollie's projection of emotions like frustration, agitation and shyness was masterful, and so was Stan Laurel's conception of the harried, ineffectual soul."

"Another 'great,' and I use that word very carefully, not the way Milton Berle uses it. One of the reasons I love Buster so much is because he lives comedy as well as practices it. Some of his things are better than Chaplin's."

"He and Jolson were wonderful entertainers the like of which you don't see anymore. They weren't comedians really, but funny singing entertainers of the kind I used to see and love in the English music hall. It's a shame that young performers these days aren't remotely like them."

"I realized that on the internet, you can hide in invisibility, so speaking with another person is kind of like speaking to another part of yourself, or like confessing to a priest of your own creation. So it becomes very daring, very frank, with a desire to give the burdens you carry in your heart to the other person, to have that other person share the burden. Secrets are very heavy, and someone who keeps a huge secret cannot live carefree. Over time, the corrosiveness of secrets can erode the most intimate relationships."

"Don’t you think all women need to be admired, and welcome it? Admiration comes out of sensitivity and attention. Admiration includes paying attention to every detail of her body, decoding her body language, being sensitive to her subtlest gestures, being aware of all the expressions behind her expression. Women always feel that the people closest to them don’t understand, don’t comprehend them; that they lack the sensitivity that comes from true passion. Without this sensitivity and understanding, women lack a sense of security and don’t have the impulse to open their hearts completely."

"As I mentioned previously, on the internet everyone enjoys being nameless, having the privilege and protection of anonymity. It is like a person hiding in a crowd; if the crowd curses, he curses along with it, and only by cursing along with it does he feel safe. But if he doesn’t curse along with it, he loses the crowd’s protection and is not safe. On the internet many people tell the truth, or attack others, or curse others, anonymously, thinking that if they can disappear into the vast ocean of the anonymous crowd they can feel safe."

"I don’t think a novel has a function or a mission such as teaching somebody something. Instead, I think a novelist, by writing a story in the most vivid way, with poetry of language and by sharing it with the public, is willing to discover the truth about the story together with the readers. I have written stories about women suffering during wars and after wars, because I think that no matter who wins or loses, women on both side are the ultimate victims. Their bodies are the last part of a defeated country to be conquered, to be violated. They are the mothers, wives, and daughters of soldiers whose lost lives leave voids in the women’s lives, too deep to be filled."

"I think the Chinese are a people of survival. We are all wonderful survivors. We have risen in population during the last century, a century in which wars and famines have happened all the time. We have survived natural and political disasters almost every other year during the last sixty years. Without optimism I don’t think my people could live until today. I have gone to poor rural areas in China and seen destitute people joke and jest and laugh. I can imagine Chinese at the bottom of society, surviving like them over thousands of years. They must have a good sense of humor to go through hardship, and they must have learned how to steal whatever small pleasure they can to hold on to their dear life. I can’t imagine that any people could survive so many centuries of sorrow if to live only means to suffer. They have learned to steal joy, however little, out of the overall suffering."

"I don’t consider myself a successful screenwriter. I write screenplays because I have no choice. Often I’m simply the director’s last resort. I think that good novel-writing emphasizes characterization. It’s the personality that makes a good movie or novel character unforgettable."

"But it’s frustrating, that you know what good literature is but you cannot get it totally right."

"I consider myself as having two selves. One self is Chinese and more delicate, more subtle, in terms of language. But the English self is young and audacious, and I say what I want to say."

"It’s frustrating seeing things lost in translation. Some expressions are just so Chinese, or so English, you have to switch your thinking to English in order to write it with spontaneity and naturally."

"I think Chinese is a difficult language to translate. Every time a draft translation of my work lands on my desk, I read it as if it were someone else’s work. I think I have the ability to stay detached and read my own work objectively, because when I read a translation draft, I rarely compare a sentence or a paragraph with my original work. The only time I do is when I discover a passage that doesn’t sound right. I don’t nitpick. It’s unfortunate that Chinese is a such a unique language, with origins so different from Western languages, so every time I read a translation, I feel something is lost, some of the strength or color."

"Death is not completely tragic, perhaps it will be the completion of a redemption, or the beginning of a rebirth."

"The pity is my expression in English is still young and not subtle enough. It’s not quite there. I read English very well, I know what good language is, and I want to reach the level of Nabokov and Conrad."

"My dream is to write with both pens, in English and Chinese. I want to be more truthful and more straightforward when I write in English."

"It’s always challenging to portray foreign characters in a novel that is told mainly from a Chinese perspective or, you may say, in a Chinese story."

"I believe all free thinkers, all artists and writers, should be independent from the mainstream so they won’t take the value system or moral standards of the mainstream for granted. They should take it as their duty to question and doubt the way of life and way of thinking of the majority. I am glad to live overseas as a Chinese writer, to remain independent and critical of both sides."

"Any suffering registered in your mind makes the emotion deeper. Maybe as a writer, I am constantly looking for tragedy."

"With books or film I want to commemorate our youth and the sacrifices they made. No matter how bitter the time was, there is always something beautiful. I want to satisfy my nostalgia and hope [my work] is touching enough to move audiences who may not have the same experiences."

"From early on, I was nourished in a literary way. I didn't realize that there was a writer already living in me"

"What makes me choose to write a particular story as fiction only depends on how interesting the story is and how much literary and aesthetic value I can see in it. In China, I don’t believe there are enough good literature and artistic works of aesthetic value that have been created on this war. So far, most are just crass propaganda. Literature doesn’t stop war, but it helps us understand what war can do to human hearts, and what worst or best behaviors war can trigger from us."

"I like to play with words. In English, there's only one or two ways to say something; in Chinese there are 30 ways."

"I don't see myself in the circle of Asian-American writers. My English is only that of a 15-year-old. I don't feel confident enough to write about contemporary America. China has been the subject of my writings, no matter where I am. However, I'm not completely Chinese - more an outsider of China's affairs. I have the right to speak on the subjects that I lived through"

"There are still many problems that aren't answered in China. As a writer, I have to keep searching for truth. The Chinese government still neglects many mistakes that were made during the Cultural Revolution and covering the facts. We need to revisit the old wounds."

"I was disillusioned with the communists after they shot the students at the square. But now I'm disgusted with this country [US], as well. I thought the US was such a free land. I don't know where else I should go to now. I was just naturalised."

"Good stories will keep haunting me for years. They will mature and want to be born. I can't help it."

"Under normal circumstances, I will not travel until a novel is finished.If there is an agreed itinerary, I will calculate the time at home, enough to write a lot of work. If I am writing a novel and encounter an urgent matter of traveling, I will be very upset and even painful. If more than half of the work has been written, and the tone of voice of this work has been formed, then I will feel better, otherwise, when I come back from a trip and sit at the desk, I want to give up because the tone is out of tone and the sense of language is weak."

"But these days in China the authorities don’t grant my novels official book licensing numbers, so there’s no way to publish them in China. For that reason, I’m considering writing in English again. I swim every day, and when I swim, I feel that swimming laps back and forth is rather boring, so I think about a novel’s structure, its beginning, its characters and such, and that way I enjoy swimming more. After I have swum for a few more months, maybe I can talk more concretely about my next project."

"Of course, the vision of many works, such as the sense of picture and imagery, is actually unconscious by the writer. If the writer is conscious, he will write very artificial things."

"She had this amazing background that you just sort of instantly romanticize. She had this whole Ukrainian vibe that made her seem both super cool and serious about truth."

"No. That was no good. That was no good at all."

"One thing I learned is that cinematography is not something you do by yourself. It’s a group [project]. You need to develop your own vision, but the key to a successful film is communication with your director and your team."

"Right now, I'm just really interested in finding fruitful collaborations. To me, it’s the collaborative effort between creative minds that elevates each other’s work."

"The yellow-and-red-striped banners of the former South Vietnam flew above crowds of rioters all over the Capitol grounds. Many of the flag carriers were Vietnamese Americans who, in support of President Donald Trump, have often used the emblem to express nostalgia for a lost home and opposition to communism."

"In Orange County’s Little Saigon, the flag of the old South Vietnam still flies, and the phrase “Ho Chi Minh City” can provoke a dirty look, or worse."

"Even in Orange County, among the Vietnamese American voters who have long been a part of the Republican coalition, the GOP has been losing ground. After an election year in which AAPI voters turned out across the nation in record numbers, there is greater urgency than ever for the party to rethink its approach."

"Our parents have been seen as a generation that was just trying to survive in many ways ... and our generation is seen as going past this idea of surviving, but really thriving. And by thriving, I think we're able to speak up."

"But many first-generation Vietnamese were already conservative to begin with. Having left behind a communist-led country, they may be averse to liberal politics, deeply religious, and invested in the idea of the American dream. Guided by a tide of Vietnamese- and English-language misinformation, however, these radical right-wing views are now quietly held by a not-so-insignificant minority — and are often left to younger, more progressive family members to challenge and dismantle."