I don't want anybody attached to me forever with gratitude. (p85) - Maxine Hong Kingston

You go into the subconscious by not writing and then you make it normal consciousness by writing. Then you rewrite until you are working almost mechanically: the grammar and the structure all mental and rational. But now comes the time for not doing any writing. I mean to get far into the subconscious, where there are not word sequences.

All during the Vietnam War, I could feel there was a darkness hanging over the whole world and it lasted for so long.

Not many women got to live out the daydream of women—to have a room, even a section of a room, that only gets messed up when she messes it up herself. (p61)