Grace Lin Quotes

'Yellow Face' marks my summation of multiculturalism.

I like having black hair. When I was really young, I wanted to be Asian - Asian hair is beautiful. I also wanted to look like the girl in George Michael's 'Father Figure' video.

I never thought that I would have to play an Indian, well half French, but an Indian woman in my life.

I was always funny, but I wasn't a great musician, and I wanted to be a musician way more than I wanted to be a comic. I just didn't think comedians were cool when I was a kid.

I was such a tomboy - goofy and, in my eyes, nerdy - and I never thought I would end up in modeling. I mean, you see pictures of these girls in magazines who have this incredible talent, and no one ever really thinks you can make it to that level. At least I didn't!

On the outside, America looks like this great melting pot, but on the inside, there's this segregation in American cinema. Why does a Latino film have to be for Latinos? Why is a black film just for black people? Why?

For me, whenever I would see a lot of 'black films,' I didn't feel represented in it. I didn't feel connected to the characters or the situations or the humor.

American myths have never been colorless.

Growing up, there were no families on TV that looked like mine.

If you had asked me what I wanted when I was 12 years old, I probably would have said, 'To marry a plastic surgeon.' You can hardly blame me: I was growing up in Miami.

Becoming pretty doesn't just change the way you look," she said. "No," David said. "It changes the way you think.

If the image one holds of one's self contains elements that don't square with reality, one is best advised to let go of them, however difficult that may be.

Culture is the study of perfection, and the constant effort to achieve it.

It must be hard to be a model, because you'd want to be like the photograph of you, and you can't ever look that way.

We cannot abandon this rabbit hole for fear of a traumatic encounter with our own culture.

Elvis [Presley] had a stepstool, if you will, to success because he came from the dominant culture. They identified with him. Michael Jackson had to come further and go deeper into the pit of possibility of American democracy and of cultural expression.

When I was younger, I enjoyed being strong, and I loved it when my heart was very strong, but I think it was also about submitting to the cultural idea that if you're a 22-year-old woman, you have to look a certain way. I'm not into that anymore. But I do appreciate it when my clothes fit.

Culture is like wealth; it makes us more ourselves, it enables us to express ourselves

The girls who were unanimously considered beautiful often rested on their beauty alone. I felt I had to do things, to be intelligent and develop a personality in order to be seen as attractive. By the time I realized maybe I wasn't plain and might even possibly be pretty, I had already trained myself to be a little more interesting and informed.

Women should feel happy with their bodies and not live with the stigma that comes from not looking like models in fashion magazines.

If I were somebody else looking at my character, I'd be like, "She's beautiful." I'm practicing. I'm not succeeding.

At a certain point you stop looking at your features, at what you don't look like. You start looking at lines and signs of fatigue rather than at the shape of your mouth.

I had given up on being beautiful. But I thought I could kind of inspire boys to write songs about me. So I became a music journalist at the age of 16.

I was a shy ugly kid who led a big fantasy life. I thought I was an angel sent from heaven, to cure polio. When Dr. Salk did that I was really pissed off.

I am not a pretty girl. I don't want to be a pretty girl. No, I want to be more than a pretty girl.