Ken Liu Quotes

We must do our best to raise the public awareness of the past in all its richness and complexity.

I think you've got to have your feet planted firmly on the ground, especially in this business, and you must not believe things that are said or written about you, because everything gets out of proportion one way or the other.

The lies the government and media tell are amplifications of the lies we tell ourselves. To stop being conned, stop conning yourself.

It is taboo for us to criticize religion… but we have no such prohibition regarding history or geography…. If some one tells us that Tennessee is on the West Coast of the United States we are under no obligation to respect his view.

A consciousness of history is one of the key factors that distinguishes us from other animals.

Never confuse wishes with facts.

Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.

The fact that civilization is becoming more intricate must not mean that we treat men for a longer period as immature. Does it not mean, perhaps, the opposite: that we must skillfully make them mature sooner, that we must find ways of handling the intricacy of our culture?

You can learn a lot about the roots of your own beliefs and your own arguments by looking at history in ways that are difficult to do in the intensity of the moment now.

… in history, so many circumstances of a small and accidental nature are relevant, that no broad and simple uniformities are possible.

I try to be well informed. I don't know how well I do all the time, but I try nonetheless.

I don't read much, to tell you the truth, about me, you know. I don't read my articles very much or stuff like that, but I have read things upon occasion, and some of it is true, and some of it isn't true, you know. I mean it's just the way it goes, you know.

I'm sick of having an opinion on everything. Getting older, you learn all sorts of things you're supposed to, but I feel like it's time, when you get older, through experience, to... I started to feel quite... what's the word? ... intimidated by seeing both sides of everything.

I think that the world is very complex. I think that the movie is a good way to ask questions. To give answers, you would write a lot of books.

In mathematics and science we solve our problems as well as create them. But in art and philosophy things are not so simple.

I think art teaches us how to feel, what our parameters can be, what sensations can be like; it makes you more engaged with life.

Literature allows us to be open, to listen, and to be curious.

Reducing everything immediately to good and evil is bad history - not only because it isn't true, but because reductionism is unpersuasive; it is boring. Good history, on the other hand, demands that one talk socratically - that one can present alternate viewpoints, not strawman arguments.

I happen to write a lot of stories that make Kissinger look bad. I'd rather that the stories weren't true, but they all happen to be true.

To me, India's always represented 'everything'; it represents 'all.' Everything is here. You can stay here forever, and you'll never feel like you've missed out on life.

I think it's so important that, if I'm writing about the real world, I stay true to it. I think that kids do compartmentalize, and they're hopefully able to see it from a safe place of their own lives and, through that, learn something about empathy.

I think, in the West, we often discount the arts as nice but not that important. Certainly in America when we cut funding for schools, the arts are the first programs to go. But the arts built the things we need more than anything else: collaboration and co-operation and creativity.

Other kids would be playing with their Action Man, and I was questioning life and society.

I love creating mysteries, but I am terrible at solving them.

Because of the Internet, we're all such authorities on every subject and can chat about all sorts of things. But when push comes to shove, when our ideas are put to the test, that's when we find out who we really are.