Min Jin Lee

I mean, it's just a liescape where you're just projecting who you want people to think you are.

And then in living up to it or not living up to it, you know, there's that shame and just being who you are.

And that's, I think, the hardest thing about being young today.

Yeah, and the children are swallowing all these lies and believing them to be true.

I don't know if we give all the kids the skills to understand what is true and what is not true.

I'm also kind of worried about the fact that when we have an education that is so focused on valuing technology over humanities,

that if they have the philosophical discernment to understand what you use your tools for.

I really like math and science.

I'm not somebody who's against those things or afraid of those things.

Quite the contrary.

I went to the Bronx High School of Science.

And yet I think that a strong humanities practice can really help you.

So I kind of think you need to have a balanced education.

While you were at the Bronx High School of Science, you read Sinclair Lewis's books and you decided to go to Yale.

You decided to apply to Yale because he had also gone there.

What was it about his books and his going to Yale that sort of provoked you to take that direction too?

It is a really curious thing.

A really good friend of mine, Andrea, had read him and she said, you should really read this author.

And then I happened to take an English class with Mr. Green.

And Mr. Green made us read.