Yeah, and the language the "we" has, and the character the "we" has. Because that was the part of the book that I didn't plan out, but the part that ….

My family immigrated when I was 3, and our predecessors inhabited the Korean Peninsula for as long as can be recalled..

To be honest, Im not that much of a reader of Korean fiction, since so little is translated..

They're not parallel at all. They're my concerns, but how they're expressed particularly on the page is completely divorced from who I am in my stree….

Don’t sanctuaries become prisons, and vice versa, foremost in the mind?.

We have hopes and make plans, and if they are dashed or waylaid, we naturally rationalize and redraw the map to locate ourselves anew. Or else we bro….

For each of us has a perch on the tree. After we are gone, that perch is marked by a notch, permanent, yes, but with its edges muting over time, assu….

I try to be aware of what I'm concerned about, aware of how I feel about myself in the world, aware of how I feel about the issues of the day, but I ….

What hasty preparations 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….

For sometimes you can't help but crave some ruin in what you love..

When I'm describing wartime activities or violence I don't want to be too ornate, to prettify the picture. Once we trace them to the present, the pro….

Like most people, Im fascinated by characters who are completely flawed personalities, riven by anguish and doubt, and are psychologically suspect..

It's just a weird idea to me because each book is a complete universe unto itself, so why would I want this other universe from this other galaxy tha….

Before I had published anything, I still hung out with people who liked to write. None of us had published, so there was no talk about the business, ….

I did a lot of reading of first person accounts from Koreans and combatants and aid workers. And I spoke to relatives. A lot of wonderful photographs….

You can be affected by a person because of something particular they said or did but sometimes how a person was, a manner of being, that gets most de….

I'd always wanted to write something about the Korean War because of my heritage. My father lost his brother during the war, and I fictionalized that….

I had a visceral connection to the period [of Korean War]. By visceral I suppose I mean emotional. But every fiction requires so much that is not tha….

I want the flashbacks to feel that once you're there they have their own unity, their own kind of atmospheric sensibility; I want the reader to be tr….

Some writers are writing one great, big book and just taking all these different avenues towards it. They might seem on the outside to be different, ….

All of my books really do look at that to degrees of difference. Technically, I do enjoy the flashback! But not just for informational material..