I've spent too many years carrying writing as if it were a burden that's only mine. I want to tell everybody, and young people too, that there are ma… - Maxine Hong Kingston

Do I have to explain why 'exotic' pisses me off, and 'not exotic' pisses me off? They've got us in a bag, which we aren't punching our way out of. To be exotic or to be not-exotic is not a question about Americans or about humans. Okay, okay. Take me, for example. I'm common ordinary. Plain black sweater. Blue jeans. Tennis shoes ordinaire. Clean soo mun shaven. What's so exotic? My hair's too long, huh? Is that it? It's the hair? (p308)

Community is not built once-and-for-all; people have to imagine, practice, and re-create it. (p306)

He repeated himself so often that some of what he said seeped into the ears. (p190)