Don Lee Quotes & Sayings

The simple exchange of legal tender for goods and services
was there anything more elemental, yet more beautiful? Money. No matter what anyone said, it was the answer to everything. When it came down to it, there was no human interaction that wasn't, at its core, a transaction. — Don Lee

It's not that people change. People don't change. They merely hide things from you, and lie. — Don Lee

And, of course, it might simply be that everyone's become a little bored with one another, doing the same things over and over, hearing and telling the same stories. — Don Lee

I'll never fall in love, because I could never trust that I wouldn't be abandoned. — Don Lee

From personal experience, Kenzo knew about the state of racial equality in America. It was sound in theory, but not in practice. It was a glorious dream, but just a dream. It would never work. It had never worked
not anywhere, not anytime in history
and the US was the only country foolish and hypocritical enough to try. — Don Lee

He didn't know why he was lying. Perhaps because his vanity was being engaged, and he wasn't above attending to his vanity. — Don Lee

If they haven't compromised themselves already, in their hearts they want to, because being true to one's art, keeping the dream alive, is utterly exhausting. — Don Lee

Youth is about promise. — Don Lee

It was such a dismal time in Japan. It almost seemed as if they were dying as a people, their economy in tatters, the population dwindling, the remaining citizens isolated and adrift. Had they been wrong about everything? Kenzo wondered. The power of consensus and obligation, the imperatives of racial purity and harmony? — Don Lee

He was half-white and half-Korean, but when asked about his ethnicity, he always said Hawaiian, a declaration of racial neutrality that, more often than not, let him avoid further inquest. — Don Lee

At what point is it acceptable to give up? — Don Lee

There was something exquisite and poetic about those fucking catastrophes. — Don Lee

How can you explain that it's just that he was sad, that he'd been sad all his life, and he knew he'd always be sad? — Don Lee

We want to think that there's an inviolable continuity among old friends, a bond that cannot be fissured despite years of lassitude and neglect. We want to believe that there's truth and solace in our memories, that there's meaning and purpose to the things that have happened to us. — Don Lee

How well do we really know anyone? We only know what people are willing to reveal. — Don Lee

All this I am projecting, of course. I'll never know for sure. We can't fully understand what plagues each other's hearts, much less our own at times. Ultimately even our best friends are unknowable to us. — Don Lee

We can't sit around waiting for things to happen. We've got to make them happen. Nothing's going to fall in our laps. That only happens to beautiful white people. — Don Lee