“For a while they wore suits or pants suits, and pants suits are kind of a women's appropriation of male costume, work costume. For me, it wasn't Western feminism or the Western workspace. It was my growing up in a house with a bunch of boys, so that male costuming just became my mode of appropriation way before, you know, Betty Friedan came along.” KnowsWayKindHouseBoysGrowing UpGrowingFeminismWesternMalesBunchSuitsPantsCostumesAppropriationWorkspace Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“It's as if I'm setting aside the husband and son, you know, the patriarchal world, for the world of the muse. This is the world of writing.” IfsKnowsWorldWritingSonHusbandSettingSettingsMuse Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“If you've been in a symbolic struggle long enough, even when the struggle is over, you don't know it's over.” IfsKnowsLongEnoughStruggleOver YouSymbolic Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“I don't know where to place my body. Everyone notices that about me. I'm very restless.” KnowsBodyRestless Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“I came to realize this weird projection: you are much more passionate about hating something outside of you when you know that something is also in you.” KnowsHateRealizingPassionateProjection Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“I feel compassionate, because I know [students] all have to go down this road of suffering and it's going to be tough.” KnowsFeelsSufferingStudentsToughCompassionate Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“No matter how sheltered [my students] are, no matter how their parents try to do right by them, every single one of them, you know, every single one of us, that's what we all face. And so it's made me - that's the one change I've marked in myself - it's made me change in the way I relate to my students. I've become a different teacher in that way.” KnowsWayTryingMadeDifferentMatterFacesParentTeacherStudentsRelate Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“In publishing books and winning awards, it's like you've enjoyed this meal, you know, two months ago. How long can you be nourished by thinking about it? You've already ingested it, and you've excreted it, and that was two months ago. You had this fabulous meal. It's not going to keep you satiated today. You have to go out and get your next meal. For me, that's writing. I have to go out and hunt my next meal.” ThinkingKnowsWritingLongTwoBookTodayNextWinningLike YouMonthsEnjoyedMealsAwardsPublishingFabulousHuntsTwo MonthsPublishing BooksWinning Awards Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“Signs of a maddening system of writing and counting that calibrates the values of something the poet does not yet know. Praxis is therefore poetics.” KnowsWritingDoeValuesPoetCountingPraxis Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
