I don't want to regurgitate. Writing should be constantly an act of creation and going forward into the new. - Maxine Hong Kingston

Mental work was harder than physical work, although it was not exactly the mind that teaching strained. (p41)

sometimes I think writing has nothing to do with me and that I shouldn't take credit for it. I feel that something comes from outside through me onto the typewritten paper. Often, I sit at the typewriter and compose stuff I didn't even know I knew. It happens all the time. It's not like I've decided what I'm going to write. (1977)

Joy and life exist nowhere but the present.