"I'm not Chinese. I thrive in interesting times"
About this Quote
A neat little booby trap of a sentence: it starts by borrowing an old curse ("May you live in interesting times"), then snaps it shut with identity and attitude. De Lint’s opener, "I’m not Chinese", punctures the popular misattribution that the “curse” is Chinese in origin. That correction isn’t pedantry; it’s a jab at the way Western culture loves to launder its anxieties through faux-Oriental wisdom, as if danger sounds more profound when stamped with an exotic seal. He’s calling out the quote’s meme-life before memes, the comforting lie of attribution that makes a grim sentiment feel antique and authoritative.
Then comes the pivot: "I thrive in interesting times". Where the original line frames “interesting” as chaos, de Lint flips it into fuel. The subtext is writerly: interesting times are narrative times, periods when reality is so volatile it generates plot on its own. For a fantasy author whose work often treats the modern city as a place where the uncanny leaks into the everyday, turmoil isn’t just a threat; it’s a portal. Crisis becomes material.
The intent reads like a double declaration. First, a refusal to participate in lazy cultural borrowing. Second, a statement of temperament: not the stoic endurance of hard times, but a kind of opportunistic aliveness, an artist’s metabolism that turns uncertainty into story. The wit lands because it’s both corrective and cocky, taking a proverb designed to warn and converting it into a personal slogan.
Then comes the pivot: "I thrive in interesting times". Where the original line frames “interesting” as chaos, de Lint flips it into fuel. The subtext is writerly: interesting times are narrative times, periods when reality is so volatile it generates plot on its own. For a fantasy author whose work often treats the modern city as a place where the uncanny leaks into the everyday, turmoil isn’t just a threat; it’s a portal. Crisis becomes material.
The intent reads like a double declaration. First, a refusal to participate in lazy cultural borrowing. Second, a statement of temperament: not the stoic endurance of hard times, but a kind of opportunistic aliveness, an artist’s metabolism that turns uncertainty into story. The wit lands because it’s both corrective and cocky, taking a proverb designed to warn and converting it into a personal slogan.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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