The Sun is Also a Star

The Sun is Also a Star

by

Nicola Yoon

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Sun is Also a Star makes teaching easy.
Daniel Bae is one of the novel's seventeen-year-old protagonists. He's a second generation immigrant who very comfortably inhabits a space between being fully American and fully Korean. While he loves Korean food and speaks Korean with his parents, he also craves the life of a “normal” American teenage boy. Though his true love is poetry, he initially plans to attend Yale and become a doctor to appease his parents. Daniel has a good relationship with his mother, Min Soo, and he has mixed feelings about his father, Dae Hyun—his father doesn't support his love of poetry, berates Daniel (when he speaks to him at all), and pushes Daniel to achieve a version of the American dream that hinges solely on financial success. Daniel believes wholeheartedly in love and destiny. He meets Natasha in Manhattan because an evangelical train conductor instructed his passengers to get off the train to go find God, and Daniel decides it's a perfect opportunity to let destiny lead him. Though he's attracted to Natasha, her disdain for love, destiny, and anything she considers unscientific presents problems for Daniel. He makes it his goal to convince her of the existence of love and make her fall in love with him scientifically, using questions from a scientific study on love. Through his daylong relationship with Natasha, Daniel comes to realize that he has no interest in following his father's plans for him and finally admits that the thought of being a doctor makes him feel anxious and trapped. As he becomes more confident that he and Natasha are meant to be, Daniel confronts both his father and his abrasive older brother, Charlie, about their poor treatment of him.

Daniel Bae Quotes in The Sun is Also a Star

The The Sun is Also a Star quotes below are all either spoken by Daniel Bae or refer to Daniel Bae. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Immigration and the American Dream Theme Icon
).
Chapter 8 Quotes

In the end, she chose both. Korean and American. American and Korean.

So they would know where they were from.

So they would know where they were going.

Related Characters: Daniel Bae, Dae Hyun Bae, Charlie Bae, Min Soo Bae
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

Maybe I should give up. I don't know why I haven't yet. The universe is clearly trying to save me from myself. I bet if I looked for signs about parting ways, I would find them.

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Natasha Kingsley
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

When they say the heart wants what it wants, they're talking about the poetic heart—the heart of love songs and soliloquies, the one that can break as if it were just-formed glass.

They're not talking about the real heart, the one that only needs healthy foods and aerobic exercise.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae
Page Number: 102
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 46 Quotes

America's not really a melting pot. It's more like one of those divided metal plates with separate sections for starch, meat, and veggies.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae, Dae Hyun Bae
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 60 Quotes

"Doesn't matter. People always ask where I'm from. I used to say here, but then they ask where are you really from, and then I say Korea. Sometimes I say North Korea and that my parents and I escaped from a water dungeon filled with piranhas where Kim Jong-un was holding us prisoner."

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Natasha Kingsley
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 69 Quotes

Of all the ways today could've gone, I couldn't have predicted this. But now I'm sure that everything that's happened today has been leading me to her and us to this moment and this moment to the rest of our lives.

Even Charlie's academic probation from Harvard feels like it's part of the plan to get us to this point.

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Natasha Kingsley, Charlie Bae
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:

I was so surprised by that. I thought I knew everything about my mom—about both of them, really—but here was this secret history I didn't know about. I asked her why she stopped and she waved her hand in the air like she was wiping the years away.

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Dae Hyun Bae, Min Soo Bae
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 80 Quotes

In modern times, the sisters have largely disappeared from the collective consciousness, but the idea of Fate hasn't. Why do we still believe? Does it make tragedy more bearable to believe that we ourselves had no hand in it, that we couldn't have prevented it? It was always ever thus.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley, Daniel Bae
Page Number: 201
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 81-82 Quotes

The sheer number of actions and reactions it's taken to form our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, it's astonishing. The number of things that had to go exactly right is overwhelming.

Compared to that, what is falling in love? A series of small coincidences that we say means everything because we want to believe that our tiny lives matter on a galactic scale.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 91 Quotes

I open my mouth to ask for more facts and specifics. I find them reassuring. The poem comes back to me. "'Hope' is the thing with feathers." I close my mouth. For the second time today I'm letting go of the details. Maybe I don't need them. It would be so nice to let someone else take over this burden for a little while.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae, Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald
Page Number: 233
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 107 Quotes

Before these buildings were buildings, they were just the skeletons of them. Before they were skeletons, they were crossbeams and girders. Metal and glass and concrete. And before that, they were construction plans. Before that, architectural plans. And before that, just an idea someone had for the making of a city.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae
Page Number: 268
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 108 Quotes

"I think all the good parts of us are connected on some level. The part that shares the last double chocolate chip cookie or donates to charity or gives a dollar to a street musician or becomes a candy striper or cries at Apple commercials or says I love you or I forgive you. I think that's God. God is the connection of the very best parts of us."

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Natasha Kingsley
Page Number: 272
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 113 Quotes

"My parents are immigrants. They moved to this country for a better life. They work all the time so my brother and I can have the American Dream. Nowhere in the American Dream does it say you can skip college and become a starving artist."

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Dae Hyun Bae, Charlie Bae, Min Soo Bae, Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald
Page Number: 291
Explanation and Analysis:

"Yes," I say. "He would." But not because he's evil. And not because he's a Stereotypical Korean Parent. But because he can't see past his own history to let us have ours.

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Dae Hyun Bae, Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald
Page Number: 292
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 120 Quotes

From this distance, the city looks orderly and planned, as if all of it were created at one time for one purpose. When you're inside it, though, it feels like chaos.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 122 Quotes

"What I care about is you, and I'm sure that love is enough to overcome all the bullshit. And it is bullshit. All the handwringing. All the talk about cultures clashing or preserving cultures and what will happen to the kids. All of it is one hundred percent pure, unadulterated bullshit, and I just refuse to care."

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Natasha Kingsley, Dae Hyun Bae
Page Number: 317
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 129 Quotes

Because everything looks like chaos up close. Daniel thinks it's a matter of scale. If you pull back far enough and wait for long enough, then order emerges.

Maybe their universe is just taking longer to form.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley, Daniel Bae
Page Number: 340
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Sun is Also a Star LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Sun is Also a Star PDF

Daniel Bae Quotes in The Sun is Also a Star

The The Sun is Also a Star quotes below are all either spoken by Daniel Bae or refer to Daniel Bae. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Immigration and the American Dream Theme Icon
).
Chapter 8 Quotes

In the end, she chose both. Korean and American. American and Korean.

So they would know where they were from.

So they would know where they were going.

Related Characters: Daniel Bae, Dae Hyun Bae, Charlie Bae, Min Soo Bae
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

Maybe I should give up. I don't know why I haven't yet. The universe is clearly trying to save me from myself. I bet if I looked for signs about parting ways, I would find them.

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Natasha Kingsley
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

When they say the heart wants what it wants, they're talking about the poetic heart—the heart of love songs and soliloquies, the one that can break as if it were just-formed glass.

They're not talking about the real heart, the one that only needs healthy foods and aerobic exercise.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae
Page Number: 102
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 46 Quotes

America's not really a melting pot. It's more like one of those divided metal plates with separate sections for starch, meat, and veggies.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae, Dae Hyun Bae
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 60 Quotes

"Doesn't matter. People always ask where I'm from. I used to say here, but then they ask where are you really from, and then I say Korea. Sometimes I say North Korea and that my parents and I escaped from a water dungeon filled with piranhas where Kim Jong-un was holding us prisoner."

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Natasha Kingsley
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 69 Quotes

Of all the ways today could've gone, I couldn't have predicted this. But now I'm sure that everything that's happened today has been leading me to her and us to this moment and this moment to the rest of our lives.

Even Charlie's academic probation from Harvard feels like it's part of the plan to get us to this point.

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Natasha Kingsley, Charlie Bae
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:

I was so surprised by that. I thought I knew everything about my mom—about both of them, really—but here was this secret history I didn't know about. I asked her why she stopped and she waved her hand in the air like she was wiping the years away.

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Dae Hyun Bae, Min Soo Bae
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 80 Quotes

In modern times, the sisters have largely disappeared from the collective consciousness, but the idea of Fate hasn't. Why do we still believe? Does it make tragedy more bearable to believe that we ourselves had no hand in it, that we couldn't have prevented it? It was always ever thus.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley, Daniel Bae
Page Number: 201
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 81-82 Quotes

The sheer number of actions and reactions it's taken to form our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, it's astonishing. The number of things that had to go exactly right is overwhelming.

Compared to that, what is falling in love? A series of small coincidences that we say means everything because we want to believe that our tiny lives matter on a galactic scale.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 91 Quotes

I open my mouth to ask for more facts and specifics. I find them reassuring. The poem comes back to me. "'Hope' is the thing with feathers." I close my mouth. For the second time today I'm letting go of the details. Maybe I don't need them. It would be so nice to let someone else take over this burden for a little while.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae, Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald
Page Number: 233
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 107 Quotes

Before these buildings were buildings, they were just the skeletons of them. Before they were skeletons, they were crossbeams and girders. Metal and glass and concrete. And before that, they were construction plans. Before that, architectural plans. And before that, just an idea someone had for the making of a city.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae
Page Number: 268
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 108 Quotes

"I think all the good parts of us are connected on some level. The part that shares the last double chocolate chip cookie or donates to charity or gives a dollar to a street musician or becomes a candy striper or cries at Apple commercials or says I love you or I forgive you. I think that's God. God is the connection of the very best parts of us."

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Natasha Kingsley
Page Number: 272
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 113 Quotes

"My parents are immigrants. They moved to this country for a better life. They work all the time so my brother and I can have the American Dream. Nowhere in the American Dream does it say you can skip college and become a starving artist."

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Dae Hyun Bae, Charlie Bae, Min Soo Bae, Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald
Page Number: 291
Explanation and Analysis:

"Yes," I say. "He would." But not because he's evil. And not because he's a Stereotypical Korean Parent. But because he can't see past his own history to let us have ours.

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Dae Hyun Bae, Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald
Page Number: 292
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 120 Quotes

From this distance, the city looks orderly and planned, as if all of it were created at one time for one purpose. When you're inside it, though, it feels like chaos.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Daniel Bae
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 122 Quotes

"What I care about is you, and I'm sure that love is enough to overcome all the bullshit. And it is bullshit. All the handwringing. All the talk about cultures clashing or preserving cultures and what will happen to the kids. All of it is one hundred percent pure, unadulterated bullshit, and I just refuse to care."

Related Characters: Daniel Bae (speaker), Natasha Kingsley, Dae Hyun Bae
Page Number: 317
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 129 Quotes

Because everything looks like chaos up close. Daniel thinks it's a matter of scale. If you pull back far enough and wait for long enough, then order emerges.

Maybe their universe is just taking longer to form.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley, Daniel Bae
Page Number: 340
Explanation and Analysis: