The sweat of hard work is not to be displayed. It is much more graceful to appear favored by the gods. (p64) - Maxine Hong Kingston

I do believe that if we study any one discipline deeply, it will connect us to everything else.

(Your books are a lot about people's inhumanity to one another, so I wondered where you find comfort and balance?) MHK: I ask that of myself a lot: where are the sources of life so that you can renew yourself! I find help in nature. We should always remember to plop ourselves under the trees because every time I've ever done that I feel the earth giving me energy and the sky giving me perspective, and I come as close as I ever do to satori. Then I realize that life in the city cuts me up into pieces. I know that, and yet I don't leave it. All I have to do is go out into nature and it gives me strength to come back and work on. And I read-there are writers who give you life whether or not they write well, it's very odd. I feel that way about Anaïs Nin, who sometimes I don't think writes well. I re-read Orlando whenever I feel stuck, and I read poetry. (1986)

I do believe that our lives and our art go together. Who I am and what I write are the same...I feel that the writing process doesn't just begin when you are putting words on paper. It begins in the living that you do before, and I feel powerful enough now so that I can set up my daily living circumstances in order to support me and support my art.