Ken Liu Quotes

Well, I suppose I'm interested in ways of storytelling and in stories that are about storytelling.

We need narrative; it feeds us in a particular way, and deconstructing it completely before you've actually experienced it, I think it leaves us unfed.

Historical facts are the vital framework around which non-fiction writers construct their narratives; they are, quite simply, indispensable.

There's a problem with narratives. Most that spring to mind are fictional.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

I think history is collective memories. In writing, I'm using my own memory, and I'm using my collective memory.

For me, a story begins with music: I feel the rhythm, the cadence, the pulse of the characters and their voices and the setting. Because I had just finished writing a book called 'Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine,' I was already filled with the music of the lives and culture of the Irish people, so I thought, why not use it?

A poem I write is not just about me; it is about national identity, not just regional but national, the history of people in relation to other people. I reach for these outward stories to make sense of my own life, and how my story intersects with a larger public history.

Narrative is so rich; it's given up so much.

I do think that narrative is very important - I think that we use narrative to organize the world around us, and so it does matter a lot what kinds of narratives we have in our inventories and which ones are reinforced so often and so strongly that we habitually reach for them without thinking.

Stories are the rich, unseen underlayer of the most ordinary moments.

True stories are way more interesting.

There's only so many ways to tell a story before the story gets boring.

We are the storytelling animal.

Stories are told over time, and so they naturally accrue meanings.

As a folklorist, I have come to believe that no piece of folklore continues to be transmitted unless it means something - even if neither the speaker nor the audience can articulate what that meaning might be.

Myths give us our sense of personal identity, answering the question, 'Who am I?'

Stories and narratives are one of the most powerful things in humanity. They're devices for dealing with the chaotic danger of existence.

Without understanding your history, you can't get a perspective about the present.

I think the basic thing that happened is we have lost our story. Humans think in stories, and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories.

As little boys, my brother and I used to spend hours with my grandmother, asking her about the details of how she came to America. She could only give us a smattering of details, but they all found their way into our collective imagination, eventually becoming a part of our own cultural identity and connection to the past.

I don't think that I can tell any story better than the story of my own country, than the stories of my own countrymen.

The idea of having a narrative guiding the viewer through and grasping their attention is a really compelling thing.

Each country has its own way of communicating a narrative and, through that, expressing family experiences in emotional stories.

I definitely hope to create, to tell some stories on larger canvases, which does mean making something that is narratively more broad. But that's not a bad thing.