When we Chinese girls listened to the adults talk-story, we learned that we failed if we grew up to be but wives or slaves. We could be heroines, swo… - Maxine Hong Kingston

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

These struggles have got to result in happy endings for all, and the readers must learn not to worship tragedy as the highest art any more. (1990)

(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)