Maxine Hong Kingston

“In a time of destruction, create something.”

“To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world-that I am able to change it in positive ways.”

“This is the most important thing about me--I'm a card-carrying reader. All I really want to do is sit and read or lie down and read or eat and read or shit and read. I'm a trained reader. I...”

“It must be that people who read go on more macrocosmic and microcosmic trips – biblical god trips, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake trips. Non-readers, what do they get...”

“Let my life as Poet begin. I want the life of the Poet. I have labored for over twelve years, one thousand pages of prose. Now, I want the easiness of poetry. The brevity of the poem.”

“The difference between mad people and sane people... is that sane people have variety when they talk-story. Mad people have only one story that they talk over and over.”

“What does old look like? Sometimes I am wrinkled, sometimes not.”