Enhance Your Quote Experience
Enjoy ad-free browsing, unlimited collections, and advanced search features with Premium.
" "For fiction, we fantasize about what we would like to happen: I am making what I would like to happen happen. And so, this writing always feels new and going forward. If there is such a thing as reverse memory, maybe that's what I am getting into; because it seems to me, I'm writing the memory of the future rather than a memory of the past. (1986)
Maxine Hong Kingston (born October 27, 1940) is a Chinese American author and Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley.
Enjoy ad-free browsing, unlimited collections, and advanced search features with Premium.
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
I don't like hearing non-Chinese people say to a Chinese person, "Well now I know about you because I have read Maxine Hong Kingston's books." Each artist has a unique voice. Many readers don't understand that. The problem of how "representative" one is will only be solved when we have many more Chinese American writers. Then readers will see how diverse our people are.
To make my waking life American-normal, I turn on the lights before anything untoward makes an appearance. I push the deformed into my dreams, which are in Chinese, the language of impossible stories. Before we can leave our parents, they stuff our heads like the suitcases which they jam-pack with homemade underwear. (p87)
Premium members can get their quote collection automatically imported into their Quotewise collections.
I was really shocked when I came out with my first book. At that time there were some Asian American men who were all we had of our literary community. And I expected, when my book came out, for them to say, welcome. Welcome to the community of artists. Because there are so few of us. So here's another one to add strength to our numbers. And, instead, the men just right away went into this big thing. It's a very crazy plot they have in their heads. Their assessment of the publishing industry is so wrong. (1989)