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Quote by Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“Sometimes, in my published complaints about not being a writer, I have recalled the prospect - the yearning to be a writer - as it first formed for me.”

Quote by Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Author

Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Shirley Geok-lin Lim is a Singaporean-born writer known for her profound insights into multiculturalism and her rich literary works. Her writings often focus on themes of race, gender, and identity, which have resonated with readers worldwide. more

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“In various memoir pieces, I have traced the trajectory of yearning through decisions made, good and bad, that had somehow kept the ambition on track.”

Made Decision Pieces Ambition Track Various Memoir Yearning Good And Bad Trajectory Decisions Made

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“John Milton famously claimed, "Fame is the spur" for the poet, and indeed when we consider the six years he spent writing Paradise Lost, and the additional years revising it, from 1664 to 1674, we may allow that spur.”

Writing Years May Lost Poet Fame Six Paradise Spurs Milton Revising

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“I do not think a similar goal, to attain fame, drove me when I was a child and young woman.”

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Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“In Among the White Moon Faces, I wrote about my desire to be a writer as rooted in my obsessive hours of reading English novels and poetry. It was that spur, that desire, that pushed me to set aside love and marriage in my early twenties.”

Faces Desire Reading Hours White Novel Moon Twenties Rooted Obsessive Spurs Love And Marriage

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“Of course, among the confused motives that spurred me toward being a writer was also the desire to look, to be above the trees and rooftops, beyond the Malaysian horizon that circumscribed my life.”

Looks Desire Courses Tree Motive Confused Horizon Rooftops

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“I was driven, as have been many writers, both by a repulsion of the childhood home's narrow confines and a desire to reach further, to keep desiring more of a future not yet imagined and not yet written down.”

Has Beens Home Desire Written Childhood Driven Repulsion Childhood Home

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“That desire to reach further is also where I ended my memoir, in 1994 in California, perhaps ironically, looking out to the Pacific and back to Asia, toward the not-yet-written.”

Desire Written Memoir California Asia Pacific

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“In some ways it is absurd for me to assert, counter to evidence, that I have not been writing.”

Way Writing Evidence Absurd

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“Even my novels offer passages in which the major character is imagined as a writer. In Joss and Gold, Li An is a business writer who edits her company's weekly public relations magazine. And in Sister Swing, Suyin writes human interest stories for a free, local community paper, The Asian Time.”

Writing Humans Character Stories Interest Community Company Novel Offers Paper Majors Gold Relation Locals Magazines Passages Swings Asian Edits Public Relations Local Community

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“When someone asks me now, "What do you do?" I will be able to say, "I am a writer."”

Able Asks Ask Me

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim