They think that Americans are either white or Black. I can't wear that civil-rights button with the Black hand and the white hand shaking each other.… - Maxine Hong Kingston

I've heard that before, from writers who say that I get them going again. It makes me feel that in my life I am at the source of life and words. I feel that I'm sort of standing over this hole in the universe, and it's all pouring in. I can be a conduit. The people who read my work feel more alive, and they can work. I feel like that about other writers that make me keep going. When I read Virginia Woolf's Orlando or William Carlos Williams's In the American Grain, I can feel like I'm dying, or I'm stuck, both in life and in work. I read those books, and then I start flowing again. I'm happy that I can do that for other people. (1989)

I feel that everyone has a blurred area, which is a border between their imagination and what actually happens, and I am very interested in that border.

The lights of the city on hills make a vertical shimmer from sky straight into the water, like a backdrop, like a dream. (p37)