“Even today, I'm much more comfortable dressed in a male kind of way.” WayKindTodayComfortableMales Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“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
“If the act of writing is the act of putting aside the masculine, then you might in that way, it may sound almost crazy to say this, say that the act of writing, for a woman, could be a homosexual act.” IfsWayWritingMayMightSoundCrazyHomosexualMasculine Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“Quite a while ago, I made a conscious choice to place my teaching first, so it was very ego-invested. That decision wasn't a good thing in some ways.” WayFirstsMadeChoicesDecisionTeachingEgoConsciousGood Things Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“In that way, I don't understand myself. It might have to do with my own conflicts, where to place my body as a child, which I have carried over to now. In this way I'm constantly dislocated.” WayChildrenBodyMightMy OwnConflict Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“In short, for me - I'm kind of projecting onto you - distraction has become a modus vivendi, a way of life. Rather than complaining, I am recognizing that I couldn't do what I wanted to do because I'm distracted.” WayKindWantedComplainingDistractionRecognizingDistracted Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“Wouldn't that be wonderful if I could do that? And that way, I could walk with the muse, rather than walk without her. The novel would write itself.” IfsWayWritingWalksNovelWonderfulIf I CouldMuse Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“In Sister Swing, the two sisters have boyfriends and they go to bed with them, but the descriptions are not graphic. They're minimal. The sex is not graphic in the way that DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover has all these graphic passages.” WayTwoSexLoversBedDescriptionPassagesSwingsGraphicTwo Sisters Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“In the same way, the people whom I most abhor, I abhor them for elements that I abhor in myself.” PeopleWayElements Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
“In a way, this kind of insight or recognition often permeates the way I think of character, how I plot action, and the way in which I use imagery, seeing binaries as false.” ThinkingWayKindCharacterUseActionSeeingInsightRecognitionPlotImagery 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 some ways it is absurd for me to assert, counter to evidence, that I have not been writing.” WayWritingEvidenceAbsurd Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim
