Iris Chang Quotes

“As the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice.”

— Iris Chang

Almost all people have this potential for evil, which would be unleashed only under certain dangerous social circumstances.

— Iris Chang

“When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live not just by the day - but by the minute.”

— Iris Chang

“The spoken word vanished with the wind. Likewise, the unrecorded life disappears as if it never existed.”

— Iris Chang

“The Rape of Nanking did not penetrate the world consciousness in the same manner as the Holocaust or Hiroshima because the victims themselves had remained silent.”

— Iris Chang

Books are the ultimate way for writers to reach immortality.

— Iris Chang

“I don't mind solitude. I love talking to other people, but I do need my space.”

— Iris Chang

“I may attempt a novel. I think that no matter what you write, it requires being honest with oneself, and you have to pull yourself out of the whirlwind of daily life.”

— Iris Chang

“Whatever is not commonly seen is condemned as alien.”

— Iris Chang

“The worst ... was what the Pakistani soldiers did to the Bengali women after their failed rebellion.”

— Iris Chang

“There are now hundreds of thousands of new engineers that are being trained in China. If people start finding themselves losing their jobs, not to the Chinese here but because China has become such a dominant force - then there could very well be a backlash.”

— Iris Chang

“Racism is always there underneath, but usually it is exploited in these times of economic crisis, and it's hard to find out when one slides into another.”

— Iris Chang

“We have to keep in mind that it's not just about the numbers of people who died; it's also the manner which many of these victims met their deaths.”

— Iris Chang

“I received an honorary doctorate for my work. Maybe one of these works is considered the equivalent of a Ph.D.”

— Iris Chang

“I have certainly amassed many historical research gathering skills.”

— Iris Chang

“It's a wonderful thing to see a segment of our population that is open and eager to learn more about Chinese culture. It has filtered into the mainstream. You see credit-card ads on TV with white couples and Chinese babies.”

— Iris Chang

It is very difficult to hang onto the relics of history.

— Iris Chang

“They probably do have an Asian Barbie.”

— Iris Chang

Now, most of the new immigrants coming to this country are from Asia as opposed to Europe.

— Iris Chang

“Your first duty as a writer is to write to please yourself. And you have no duty towards anyone else.”

— Iris Chang

“After working as a journalist I went to a writing program at Johns Hopkins. It was interesting because it was neither journalistic nor historical, but it emphasized writing style, and afterwards I was asked to write my first book.”

— Iris Chang

“I have to finish this book tour of almost 30 cities.”

— Iris Chang

“There isn't much discussion of ruling class in America even in Boston, probably one of the most class-conscious cities in the country?”

— Iris Chang

“If the conditions were right there could be great acceptance. Often it is only when they pose an economic or political threat that it turns really ugly.”

— Iris Chang

Often, what you see in the media is driven by economic forces.

— Iris Chang

“It was clear that the special interest groups in California really wanted the Chinese to be shut out of the country, because that was where the racial tension was the greatest.”

— Iris Chang

“The whole story of the comfort women, the system of forced sexual slavery, the medical experiments of Unit 731, is not something that is in the US psyche. That is changing because many books are coming out.”

— Iris Chang

There is also an epidemic of infertility in this country. There are more women who have put off child-bearing in favor of their professional lives. For them, the only way they are going to have a family is to adopt from China.

— Iris Chang

“There isn't much in the way of pure communist spirit, because the whole nation seems to be engaged in capitalistic enterprises. Much of the country still operates under government control.”

— Iris Chang

When the Chinese first came to San Francisco, they were actually welcomed by the mayor and they had special ceremonies for them-again this is when their colony was very small, only a few Chinese.

— Iris Chang

“When you take something extremely broad, then it is not a work of expansion or work of compression. It's hard because you have to decide what to throw out.”

— Iris Chang

“It's much more difficult to work on a broad subject than on a specific one, because even if it's hard to find the information, if you look hard enough for something specific you will find it, and you will discover things that you wouldn't have thought of before.”

— Iris Chang

“Of course, in the United States, which at the time was a very young country, there were also class distinctions. They weren't as pronounced, but they quickly evolved as well.”

— Iris Chang

“Somebody who was born in this country who visited China would later face difficulty getting back in to the USA. We have to keep in mind that the struggles of the Chinese against these exclusion laws really laid down the foundations of civil rights law.”

— Iris Chang

“Please believe in THE POWER OF ONE. One person can make an enormous difference in the world. One person - actually, one idea - can start a war, or end one, or subvert an entire power structure. One discovery can cure a disease or spawn new technology to benefit or annihilate the human race. You as ONE individual can change millions of lives. Think big. Do not limit your vision and do not ever compromise your dreams or ideals.”

— Iris Chang