All Maxine Hong Kingston Quotes
- Chinese Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities,… Americans
- There's something in life that's a curtain, and I keep trying to raise it. Curtain
- I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes. Large
- Hunger also changes the world - when eating can't be a habit, then neither can seeing. Changes
- The work of preservation demands that the feelings playing about in one's guts not be turned into action. Just watch their passing like cherry blossoms. Action
- I may be ugly and clumsy, but one thing I'm not, I'm not retarded. Clumsy
- The images of peace are ephemeral. The language of peace is subtle. The reasons for peace, the definitions of peace, the very idea of peace… Definitions
- And I had to get out of hating range. Hate
- A story can take you through a whole process of searching, seeking, confronting, through conflicts, and then to a resolution. As the storyteller and the… Conflict
- You must not tell anyone,' my mother said, 'what I am about to tell you.' Anyone
- 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.… Begin
- Perhaps women were once so dangerous that they had to have their feet bound Bound
- Be careful what you say. It comes true. It comes true. I had to leave home in order to see the world logically, logic the… Careful
- The swordswoman and I are not so dissimilar. May my people understand the resemblance soon so that I can return to them. What we have… Backs
- Joy and life exist nowhere but the present. Exist
- How unlike a dead fish a live fish is. Dead
- In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment. Community
- People who can comfort the dead can also chase after them to hurt them further-a reverse ancestor worship. Ancestor
- Daughters-in-law lived with their husbands' parents, not their own; a synonym for marriage in Chinese is "taking a daughter-in-law. Chinese
- Ocean people are very different from land people. The ocean never stops saying and asking into ears, which don't sleep like eyes. Asking
- My aunt could not have been the lone romantic who gave up everything for sex. Women in the old China did not choose. Some man… Aunt
- Attraction eludes control so stubbornly that whole societies designed to organize relationships among people cannot keep order, not even when they bind people to one… Among
- I'm so proud that my offspring became a musician. I'm full of awe that we are able to have a whole family live the life… Able
- I've been writing since I was 7, but before that, I was orally making stories. Been
- It seems that writing chose me. I feel that because I know history, and I know the history of so many cultures; I have lived… Chose