Mental work was harder than physical work, although it was not exactly the mind that teaching strained. (p41) - Maxine Hong Kingston

When I write most deeply, fly the highest, reach the furthest, I write like a diarist-that is, my audience is myself. I dare to write anything because I can burn my papers at any moment. I do not begin with the thought of an audience peering over my shoulder, nor do I find my being understood a common occurrence anyway-a miracle when it happens.

I had to get out of hating range. (p52)

One of the wonderful things about the 1960s was language. There was a new language and there were wonderful new ways of describing psychedelic states, spiritual states, trying to find new words for political actions like those of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. What do you call that when you sit at the lunch counter and you don't move and you do it with peace and love?