Celeste Ng Quotes & Sayings

You never got what you wanted; you just learned to get by without it. — Celeste Ng

A few people insisted that the Cape-to-Cairo Railroad was in Europe. For college students, they have surprising trouble with geography. — Celeste Ng

Every time she kissed him, every time he opened his arms and she crawled into them, felt like a miracle. Coming to her made him feel perfectly welcomed, perfectly at home, as he had never in his life felt before. — Celeste Ng

nothing in the bag but a quart — Celeste Ng

Hannah, as if she understood her place in the cosmos, grew from quiet infant to watchful child: a child fond of nooks and corners, who curled up in closets, behind sofas, under dangling tablecloths, staying out of sight as well as out of mind, to ensure the terrain of the family did not change. — Celeste Ng

This is it, Marilyn told herself. Let it
go. This is what you have. Accept it. — Celeste Ng

She did not know how to explain what happened, how everything has changed in just one day, how someone she loved so dearly could be there one minute, and the next minute: gone. — Celeste Ng

I'd like to think of my self as not melancholic at all, I think I'm a pretty cheerful person, really. — Celeste Ng

I would never tell myself, you have to write 20 pages today or something. But I do try to show up. Read what I wrote, fix things. — Celeste Ng

She had scooped Lydia up and smoothed her hair and told her how clever she was, how proud her father would be when he came home. But she'd felt as if she'd found a locked door in a familiar room: Lydia, still small enough to cradle, had secrets. Marilyn might feed her and bathe her and coax her legs into pajama pants, but already parts of her life were curtained off. She kissed Lydia's cheek and pulled her close, trying to warm herself against her daughter's small body. — Celeste Ng

She recognized it at once: love, one-way deep adoration that bounced off and did not bounce back; careful, quiet love that didn't care and went on anyway. — Celeste Ng

Morning sun fills the house, creamy as lemon chiffon, lighting the insides of cupboards and empty closets and clean, bare floors. — Celeste Ng

There is something about Midwest in general, that has kind of an underdog quality. — Celeste Ng

As if they were two halves of a mold. He — Celeste Ng

She drove on into the night, homeward, her hair weeping tiny slow streams down her back. — Celeste Ng

That long-ago day, sitting in this very spot on the dock, she had already begun to feel it: how hard it would be to inherit their parents' dreams. How suffocating to be so loved. — Celeste Ng

Lydia, five years old, standing on tiptoe to watch vinegar and baking soda foam in the sink. Lydia tugging a heavy book from the shelf, saying, "Show me again, show me another." Lydia, touching the stethoscope, ever so gently, to her mother's heart. Tears blur Marilyn's sight. It had not been science that Lydia had loved — Celeste Ng

I think this is something that is naturally built in in people, a need for attention and a need to be special and we are always trying to find a balance. — Celeste Ng

For moving would never have been enough; he sees that now. It would have been the same anywhere. Children of Mixed Backgrounds Often Struggle to Find Their Place. — Celeste Ng

Because more than anything, her mother had wanted to stand out; because more than anything, her father had wanted to blend in. Because those things had been impossible. In — Celeste Ng

At least I know who I am. What I want, — Celeste Ng

The intricate gears of her mind ticking silently at no one, thoughts pinging the closed windows like a trapped bee. p. 251 — Celeste Ng

Dreaming of his future, he no longer heard all the things she did not say. — Celeste Ng

For the rest of the summer, and for years after that, they will grope for the words that say what they mean: to Nath, to Hannah, to each other. There is so much more they need to say. — Celeste Ng

And Lydia herself - the reluctant center of their universe - every day, she held the world together. She absorbed her parents' dreams, quieting the reluctance that bubbled up within. — Celeste Ng

All of that will be gone by morning. Instead, they will dissect this last evening for years to come. What had they missed that they should have seen? What small gesture, forgotten, might have changed everything? They will pick it down to the bones, wondering how this had all gone so wrong, and they will never be sure. — Celeste Ng

condolences; a few of them pat Hannah on the head, as if she's — Celeste Ng

It had not been science that Lydia had loved. And then, as if the tears are telescopes, she begins to see more clearly: the shredded posters and pictures, the rubble of books, the shelf prostrate at her feet. Everything that she had wanted for Lydia, which Lydia had never wanted but had embraced anyway. A dull chill creeps over her. Perhaps - and this thought chokes her - that had dragged Lydia underwater at last. — Celeste Ng

wasn't until he heard the horror in the teacher's voice - "Shirley Byron!" - that he realized he was supposed to be embarrassed; the next time it happened, he had learned his lesson and turned red right away. In — Celeste Ng

She understands. There is nowhere to go but on. Still, part of her longs to go back — Celeste Ng

If you told people you were moving to Ohio, they wouldn't congratulate you. They'd say "OH WHY would you move there?" as if that was something that happened to you and you had to deal with. — Celeste Ng

When a long, long time later, he stares down at the silent blue marble of the earth and thinks of his sister, as he will at every important moment of his life. He doesn't know this yet, but he senses it deep down in his core. So much will happen, he thinks, that I would want to tell you. — Celeste Ng

Whenever he remembered this moment, it lasted forever: a flash of complete separateness as Lydia disappeared beneath the surface. Crouched on the dock, he had a glimpse of the future: without her, he would be completely alone. In the instant after, he knew it would change nothing. He could feel the ground still tipping beneath him. Even without Lydia, the world would not level. He and his parents and their lives would spin into the space where she had been. They would be sucked into the vacuum she left behind.

More than this: the second he touched her, he knew that he had misunderstood everything. When his palms hit her shoulders, when the water closed over her head, Lydia had felt relief so great she had sighed in a deep choking lungful. She had staggered so readily, fell so eagerly, that she and Nath both knew: that she felt it, too, this pull she now exerted, and didn't want it. That the weight of everything tilting toward her was too much. — Celeste Ng

He had forgotten that anything could be so tender. He breaks the bun open, revealing glossy bits of pork and glaze, a secret red heart.

When he puts it to his mouth, it is like a kiss: sweet and salty and warm. — Celeste Ng

I am in a mixed race marriage myself, and I have a mixed race son ... The racial perception interest is probably always going to be there to some extent. — Celeste Ng

Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet. 1977, May 3, six thirty in the morning, no one knows anything but this innocuous fact: Lydia is late for breakfast. — Celeste Ng

How had it begun? Like everything: with mothers and fathers. Because of Lydia's mother and father, because of her mother's and father's mothers and fathers. — Celeste Ng

the night before? He had been away four whole — Celeste Ng

When you mention to people growing up in Cleveland they bring up the river catching on fire, or LeBron James leaving, they have these references, but no one imagines ending up there. — Celeste Ng

You could stop taking their phone calls, tear up their letters, pretend they'd never existed. Start over as a new person with a new life. Just a problem of geography, he thought, with the confidence of someone who had never yet tried to free himself of family. — Celeste Ng

It's too late. He's already learned how not to drown. — Celeste Ng

It will be all right, she told herself, and she stepped out of the boat into the water. — Celeste Ng

I am very active on Twitter and one thing that keeps popping up is "How do I balance having a kid and writing?" And I know it should not be as aggravating, but I know no one ever asks a male writer that. Or, any male that. — Celeste Ng

It would disappear forever from her memory of Lydia, the way memories of a lost loved one always smooth and simplify themselves, shedding complexities like scales. — Celeste Ng

After a while, the fear became a habit, too. — Celeste Ng

He pushed her in. And then he pulled her out. All her life, Lydia would remember one thing. All his life, Nath would remember another. — Celeste Ng

Being asked, "Where are you REALLY from?" makes one feel OTHERED. — Celeste Ng

But at that moment she had known, with a certainty she would never feel about anything else in her life, that it was right, that she wanted this man in her life. Something inside her said, He understands. What it's like to be different. — Celeste Ng

Let's pretend," he says, "that you
never met me. That she was never born.
That none of this ever happened." Then
he is gone. — Celeste Ng

Over the past two weeks she's worked her way through it [the book], a little each night, savoring the words like a cherry Life Saver tucked inside her cheek. — Celeste Ng

James slid into his seat and the girl next to him asked, "What's wrong with your eyes?" It wasn't until he heard the horror in the teacher's voice - "Shirley Byron!" - that he realized he was supposed to be embarrassed; the next time it happened, he had learned his lesson and turned red right away. — Celeste Ng

You don't feel like smiling? Then what? Force yourself to smile. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy. — Celeste Ng

The things that go unsaid are often the things that eat at you--whether because you didn't get to have your say, or because the other person never got to hear you and really wanted to. — Celeste Ng

There is nowhere to go but on. Still, part of her longs to go back for one instant - not to change anything, not even to speak to Lydia, not to tell her anything at all. Just to open the door and see her daughter there, asleep, one more time, and know all was well. — Celeste Ng

By tomorrow Marilyn would forget this moment: Lydia's shout, the shattered edges in her tone. It would disappear forever from her memory of Lydia, the way memories of a lost loved one always smooth and simplify themselves, shedding complexity like scales. — Celeste Ng

this was the first reason he came to love her: because she had blended in so perfectly, because she had seemed so completely and utterly at home. — Celeste Ng

What made something precious? Losing it and finding it. — Celeste Ng

In the dark they are careful of each other, as if they know they are fragile, as if they know they can break. — Celeste Ng

In kindegarten, he had learned how to make a bruise stop hurting: you pressed it over and over with your thumb. the first times it hurt so much your eyes watered. The second time it hurt a little less. The tenth time, it was barely an ache. — Celeste Ng

He enjoys the surprise on people's faces when he tells them he's a professor of American history. "Well, I am American," he says when people blink, a barb of defensiveness in his tone. Someone — Celeste Ng

They never discussed it, but both came to understand it as a promise: he would always make sure there was a place for her. She would always be able to say, Someone is coming. I am not alone. — Celeste Ng

as her mother promised to teach them everything a young lady needed to keep a house. As if, Marilyn thought, it might run away when you weren't looking. — Celeste Ng

Lydia has never really had friends, but their parents have never known. — Celeste Ng

He can guess, but he won't ever know, not really. What it was like, what she was thinking, everything she'd never told him. Whether she thought he'd failed her, or whether she wanted him to let her go. This, more than anything, makes him feel that she is gone. — Celeste Ng

People decide what you're like before they even get to know you — Celeste Ng

She will figure out what happened to Lydia. She will find out who is responsible. She will find out what went wrong. — Celeste Ng

Sometimes you almost forgot: that you didn't look like everyone else. In homeroom or at the drugstore or at the supermarket, you listened to morning announcements or dropped off a roll of film or picked up a carton of eggs and felt like just another someone in the crowd. Sometimes you didn't think about it at all. And then sometimes you noticed the girl across the aisle watching, the pharmacist watching, the checkout boy watching, and you saw yourself reflected in their stares: incongruous. Catching the eye like a hook. Every time you saw yourself from the outside, the way other people saw you, you remembered all over again. — Celeste Ng

Before that she hadn't realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it. — Celeste Ng

The people are maybe still as aware of the differences but they are more accepting of it that what we saw in the 70s and 80s, but the undercurrent is still there. There are maybe no racial slurs anymore, no firecrackers in mailboxes, the distinction is much more subtle. — Celeste Ng

All their lives Nath had understood, better than anyone, the lexicon of their family, the things they could never truly explain to outsiders: that a book or a dress meant more than something to read or something to wear; that attention came with expectations that - like snow - drifted and settled and crushed you with their weight. All the words were right, but in this new Nath's voice, they sounded trivial and brittle and hollow. The way anyone else might have heard them. Already her brother had become a stranger. — Celeste Ng

Irony: a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things, — Celeste Ng

If a news camera shows up, people will line up, they want to be seen. But at the same time they want both to be chosen and not singled out. I think that is an endless struggle within most. — Celeste Ng

How he'd asked for a telescope for his fourteenth birthday and received a clock radio instead; how he'd saved his allowance and bought himself one. How, sometimes, at dinner, Nath never said a word about his day, because their parents never asked. — Celeste Ng

The writer's job, after all, is not to dictate meaning, but to give the reader enough pieces to create his or her own satisfying meaning. The story is truly finished - and meaning is made - not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters the story and fills that little ambiguous space, completing the circuit, letting the power flow through. — Celeste Ng

You loved so hard and hoped so much and then you ended up with nothing. Children who no longer needed you. A husband who no longer wanted you. Nothing left but you, alone, and empty space. — Celeste Ng