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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Kevin Kwan Quotes

I’m not revealing any deep, hidden secret that there are wealthy people in Asia.

– Kevin Kwan

My grandparents were far more English in their manners than they were Chinese. For example, we spoke English at home, had afternoon tea every day, and my grandfather, who attended university in Scotland, would smoke his pipe after dinner.

– Kevin Kwan

I do believe that peoples’ natures can be changed, and they have to be changed if we want to live in this modern world and be a part of it.

– Kevin Kwan

If you’re the water boiler king of China, you’re selling a billion water boilers.

– Kevin Kwan

I remembered that my grandfather had spent his teenage years in Shanghai and that he went back after he finished medical school to work there in a hospital. So I went back into my family archives and was able to find out his exact address; it was a street that was in the French Concession.

– Kevin Kwan

Living in the West, you see how there’s only two versions of how Asian men are supposed to be. Either they’re very nice, yuppie husbands with children in ads, or they’re IT geeks.

– Kevin Kwan

I was born in Singapore, and I lived there until I was 12. I had a very fortunate upbringing.

– Kevin Kwan

I live in New York, but I still get the village gossip. My apartment is a crash pad for so many Singaporean cousins and friends.

– Kevin Kwan

Especially in the West, people want to understand Asia on a deeper level because it’s become the engine of the world economy, like it or not.

– Kevin Kwan

My books are comedies; I want to take my readers on a jet-setting romp, make them laugh, make them swoon at the beautiful settings, and maybe even make their mouths water at all the food.

– Kevin Kwan

My grandmother used to get her shoes made in Paris in the ’30s, and they would be shipped to her in Singapore.

– Kevin Kwan

Even if they’re not Asian or super rich… everyone has a nagging mother. Everyone has that obnoxious uncle, or that cousin who’s a bit too snobby.

– Kevin Kwan

A lot of the people who live the lives of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ don’t see the humour of their lives simply because this is just who they are. Even though I’m from that part of the world, I’m no longer part of that world.

– Kevin Kwan

The idea of Asian ascendancy has entered public culture.

– Kevin Kwan

Canada has become such a staging area for Chinese money.

– Kevin Kwan

Certainly, living in the U.S., as I have for over two decades, you see how Asians are portrayed in the media… I didn’t see myself represented, you know, when I used to look at ads on TV.

– Kevin Kwan

No matter our background, we all have crazy families.

– Kevin Kwan

I wanted to introduce a contemporary Asia to a North American audience.

– Kevin Kwan

I grew up at a time in Singapore – the ’70s and ’80s – where it was still possible to go riding around the island barefoot. And I was one of these kids that was just climbing trees and running around the neighbourhood.

– Kevin Kwan

I’ve always been drawn to the Edwardian period in England. To me, it seems like such a fascinating time, when the British Empire was at the height of its powers and the strict mores of the Victorian age were dissipating into the decadence of King Edward’s reign.

– Kevin Kwan

One of the dreams on my wish list is to spend more time in Thailand.

– Kevin Kwan

Growing up in Singapore, I wasn’t allowed to visit China. So when I was finally able to go there after the country began opening up to tourism in the 1990s, I found it to be utterly astounding.

– Kevin Kwan

I’ve lived in New York City for over twenty years now, and every single day is like a new adventure. At this point, there are many places I’d love to visit, but I can’t imagine living anywhere else on the planet.

– Kevin Kwan

Old money in Southeast Asia is much more discrete and low key. It’s about not wearing brand names. It’s about being invisible, almost. The billionaire can be taking the bus with you.

– Kevin Kwan

The China Rich seem to be spending on a scale that’s just beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. They are building and buying an insane amount of luxury residences around the world, commissioning huge flying palaces from Boeing, and paying ridiculous amounts for art.

– Kevin Kwan

My mother likes to say that I was conceived to shop – not just born to shop. My whole life as a child was following her and her sister and friends around on her shopping trips.

– Kevin Kwan

People have always been fascinated by the foibles of the wealthy and privileged.

– Kevin Kwan

There’s so much emphasis on the economic might of China, of Southeast Asia, Asian ‘Super Tigers’ and things like that. But nobody was really looking from the perspective of a family story, of these individuals.

– Kevin Kwan

The characters that populate my books are global nomads in their own right, keeping multiple homes around the world and constantly jet-setting to new places.

– Kevin Kwan

It would have been amazing to have been a student at Oxford during that golden moment in the 1910s, rubbing elbows with the likes of Aldous Huxley and T.E. Lawrence, before World War I shattered everything forever.

– Kevin Kwan

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