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.

Natasha Kingsley Character Analysis

Natasha Kingsley, an undocumented immigrant from Jamaica, is one of the seventeen-year-old protagonists of the novel. She came to the US when she was eight years old with her mother, Patricia, to join her father, Samuel. The family overstayed their tourist visa and have been in the country since. Natasha adored her passionate, artistic father when she was a child, but over the last several years, her love and respect for him slowly waned as she realized that his dream of becoming a famous actor was never going to come true. In response to her father’s failures, Natasha turns to math and science as an alternative to passion, as those subjects have lucrative career opportunities as well as little room for error or emotion. Natasha meets Daniel as she's attempting to overturn her family's Voluntary Removal notice, a cause she takes up because she identifies fully as American and believes that Jamaica holds nothing for her. Though she's initially rude and brisk with Daniel, she finds him extremely attractive, and by the end of the day, she comes to see that there's value in his love of poetry, emotion, love, and religion. At the end of the day, Natasha's family is forced to leave the country, but not before Natasha finally confronts her father about his neglect of their family. She informs him that he needs to start living in the real world and stop living in his dreams—something she had been unable to say to him before meeting Daniel and learning from him.

Natasha Kingsley Quotes in The Sun is Also a Star

The The Sun is Also a Star quotes below are all either spoken by Natasha Kingsley or refer to Natasha Kingsley. 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 4 Quotes

She glances up at me again but shows no sign that she recognizes me, even though I've been here every day for the last week. To her I'm just another anonymous face, another applicant, another someone who wants something from America.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Irene
Related Symbols: Headphones
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

One day in the future, the meaning of irie will move on, and it will become just another word with a long list of archaic or obsolete definitions. "Is everything irie?" someone will ask you in a perfect American accent. "Everything's irie," you will respond […] Neither of you will know about Abraham or the Rastafari religion or the Jamaican dialect. The word will be devoid of any history at all.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley, Samuel Kingsley, Lester Barnes
Page Number: 26
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 40 Quotes

Does he want to know how it feels to be undocumented? Or how I keep waiting for someone to find out I don't belong here at all?

Probably not. He's looking for facts, not philosophy, so I write them down.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald, Hannah Winter
Page Number: 112
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 47 Quotes

When Natasha decides to wear hers in an Afro, it's not because she's aware of all this history. She does it despite Patricia Kingsley's assertions that Afros make women look militant and unprofessional. Those assertions are rooted in fear—fear that her daughter will be harmed by a society that still so often fears blackness.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley, Patricia Kingsley
Page Number: 130
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:
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 83 Quotes

Yes, she'd been frustrated with him for years, but that one moment showed us all how far apart they really were now. Even Peter, who sides with my mother in all things, flinched a little.

Still. You couldn't fault her. Not really. My father had been dreaming his life away for years. He lived in those plays instead of the real world. He still does. My mother didn't have time for dreaming anymore.

Neither do I.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Samuel Kingsley, Patricia Kingsley
Related Symbols: A Raisin In the Sun
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 86 Quotes

Should I tell him about my father's aborted dreams? Should I tell him that I think dreams never die even when they're dead? Should I tell him that I suspect my father lives a better life in his head?

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Samuel Kingsley, Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald
Related Symbols: A Raisin In the Sun
Page Number: 213
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 111 Quotes

Sometimes I think my mom's worst fear is being disappointed. She combats this by trying her hardest never to get her hopes up, and urging everyone else to do the same.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Patricia Kingsley
Page Number: 285
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

Natasha Kingsley Quotes in The Sun is Also a Star

The The Sun is Also a Star quotes below are all either spoken by Natasha Kingsley or refer to Natasha Kingsley. 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 4 Quotes

She glances up at me again but shows no sign that she recognizes me, even though I've been here every day for the last week. To her I'm just another anonymous face, another applicant, another someone who wants something from America.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Irene
Related Symbols: Headphones
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

One day in the future, the meaning of irie will move on, and it will become just another word with a long list of archaic or obsolete definitions. "Is everything irie?" someone will ask you in a perfect American accent. "Everything's irie," you will respond […] Neither of you will know about Abraham or the Rastafari religion or the Jamaican dialect. The word will be devoid of any history at all.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley, Samuel Kingsley, Lester Barnes
Page Number: 26
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 40 Quotes

Does he want to know how it feels to be undocumented? Or how I keep waiting for someone to find out I don't belong here at all?

Probably not. He's looking for facts, not philosophy, so I write them down.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald, Hannah Winter
Page Number: 112
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 47 Quotes

When Natasha decides to wear hers in an Afro, it's not because she's aware of all this history. She does it despite Patricia Kingsley's assertions that Afros make women look militant and unprofessional. Those assertions are rooted in fear—fear that her daughter will be harmed by a society that still so often fears blackness.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley, Patricia Kingsley
Page Number: 130
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:
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 83 Quotes

Yes, she'd been frustrated with him for years, but that one moment showed us all how far apart they really were now. Even Peter, who sides with my mother in all things, flinched a little.

Still. You couldn't fault her. Not really. My father had been dreaming his life away for years. He lived in those plays instead of the real world. He still does. My mother didn't have time for dreaming anymore.

Neither do I.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Samuel Kingsley, Patricia Kingsley
Related Symbols: A Raisin In the Sun
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 86 Quotes

Should I tell him about my father's aborted dreams? Should I tell him that I think dreams never die even when they're dead? Should I tell him that I suspect my father lives a better life in his head?

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Samuel Kingsley, Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald
Related Symbols: A Raisin In the Sun
Page Number: 213
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 111 Quotes

Sometimes I think my mom's worst fear is being disappointed. She combats this by trying her hardest never to get her hopes up, and urging everyone else to do the same.

Related Characters: Natasha Kingsley (speaker), Patricia Kingsley
Page Number: 285
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: