I had to get out of hating range. (p52) - Maxine Hong Kingston

("A friend once described Woman Warrior as convoluted.") MHK: Oh, I'm very proud of being convoluted. I try to be convoluted. Life is convoluted. I know there are some people who have a certain expectation of a linear kind of story where everything is explained to them and it goes at a slower pace and it's more of an accessible, popular kind of writing style. If they expect that, then they can't get into a more complicated book. I think that people like that miss out on something because they are not willing to work harder.

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?

If a woman is going to write a Book of Peace, it is given her to know devastation. ("Fire" opening line)