Grace D. Li > Quotes

“Loss was the hesitation in his voice when he spoke his mother tongue, the myths he did not know, a childhood that felt so vast and
alien from his parents' that he did not know how to cross it.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“What's wrong with wanting everything?
Nothing, as long as you know how to get it.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Art was many things, but in the end it was a question asked: What do you want to be remembered for?”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“For all that people in power claim to care about looting, it doesn't seem to matter when it's museums doing it.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“This was how it always went. Museums overlooked colonialism, conquest, a history of blood, until it was laid in front of them, until violence was met with violence.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Art belongs to the creator,” Will said, his voice soft, “not the conqueror. No matter what the law says, or what treaties are signed. For too long, museums have held on to art that isn’t theirs to keep, bought more because they know they can.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“How to be the
daughter she was supposed to be, her parents’ American Dream. How to
untangle the parts of her that were Chinese and the parts of her that were
American, how both so often felt like neither.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“How to make this life their own, how to love a country that had never belonged to them.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“All parents leave their own scars. We're the ones who have to heal from them.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Careful,” Irene said. “Museums never like to grapple with their history of colonialism. If you remove everything that was looted, then what’s left?”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“I want to think that I'm Chinese and American both, but depending on the country, I feel like I'm not enough of either.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“For so long, the past had been a wound still open. Now he could run his finger along the mark those years had left. Scars were nothing but tissue, keratin, a reminder of what the body could endure.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Once, he had thought diaspora was loss, longing, all the empty spaces in him filled with want.... But diaspora was this, too: two cultures that could both be his, history that was waiting to be made.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“We’re children of the diaspora,” Will said. He had grown up in the US, knew that no matter how much he wanted it to be, China would never be home to him. “All we’ve ever known is loss.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible. —TONI CADE BAMBARA”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“She could never be Chinese enough for China. She could never be American enough for here.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“His parents, the first ones to go to college, the first ones to leave. They had come to America with nothing but their educations, and they had built a life here, of dreams and hope and determination.
He could not be anything less than exceptional.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Income, prestige, everything that meant certainty when you had left all that you knew behind.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“They had been flirting earlier—for fun, for no real reason other than that they could—but now the night pressed down on them, soft and serious. Stockholm, in the low light, was a beginning. What would happen if they pulled this off?”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“That was the thing. She didn’t. Irene was infuriating, arrogant, more
confident than she had a right to be. But—she had always managed to pull
off the impossible.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Alex,” Irene said, and it was a sigh. She was tired of coders who thought the world spun around Silicon Valley, tired of this girl who looked at her as though she knew everything there was to know already. “Can we work together this one time?”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“It was always like this, art changing hands when it shouldn’t, cultures searching for what had been lost. How could they find their lost art—how could they ever get it back—when museums were not willing to speak of where their pieces came from?”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Her family had survived in New York for two generations, despite gentrification and rising rent prices and a healthcare system that was never kind to the self-employed.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“You want too much, Will."
These thefts, this art. A future unfolding. "What's wrong with wanting everything?" he asked.
The lights flickered on. If anyone had walked into the museum now, all they would see were these two siblings, faces turned not toward each other but to the art surrounding them. "Nothing," Irene said, but her voice was soft as a warning, "as long as you know how to get it.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“She had never liked anything she did not excel at.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Paris and its decadence would be familiar to those who had grown up in the heart of Beijing, and there was more left to take. Still, it didn’t seem wise to linger.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Art belongs to the creator,” Will said, his voice soft, “not the conqueror.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“But Will couldn’t help but feel like this was his responsibility. He had gotten them into this impossible situation. He would have to get them out.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“Immigration stories and unfamiliar history, what it was like to grow up knowing you had more than all your ancestors combined. Privilege, responsibility, all those words that sometimes had a weight too heavy to bear.”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief

“You are!” Irene snapped, and now they were both yelling, their voices echoing down the empty street. Will couldn’t bring himself to care. “You are selfish and arrogant and you would jeopardize everyone’s future just for a chance to be a part of the history you love so fucking much”
― Grace D. Li, Portrait of a Thief