Maxine Hong Kingston quotes

The sweat of hard work is not to be displayed. It is much more graceful to appear favored by the gods. (Maxine Hong Kingston)

To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world - that I am able to change it in positive ways.

Maxine Hong Kingston

The difference between mad people and sane people... is that sane people have variety when they talk-story. Mad people have only one story that they talk over and over.

Maxine Hong Kingston

I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.

Maxine Hong Kingston

Hunger also changes the world - when eating can't be a habit, then neither can seeing.

Maxine Hong Kingston

In a time of destruction, create something.

Maxine Hong Kingston

Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people.

Maxine Hong Kingston

I think that individual voices are not as strong as a community of voices. If we can make a community of voices, then we can speak more truth. Also in a community, we learn to listen...

Maxine Hong Kingston

It seems that writing chose me. I feel that because I know history, and I know the history of so many cultures; I have lived a large life.

Maxine Hong Kingston

When I'm teaching, I tell my students: It's all process. Don't even think of product.

Maxine Hong Kingston

I'm so proud that my offspring became a musician. I'm full of awe that we are able to have a whole family live the life of artists. (Maxine Hong Kingston)

There can't be a pure myth, especially when the myth has been handed down in the oral tradition. As the stories are told, they change. If the stories don't change they just die.

Maxine Hong Kingston

Let my life as Poet begin. I want the life of the Poet. I have labored for over twelve years, one thousand pages of prose. Now, I want the easiness of poetry. The brevity of the poem.

Maxine Hong Kingston

What does old look like? Sometimes I am wrinkled, sometimes not.

Maxine Hong Kingston

When I am composing, I try to clear my mind of having to publish, or having to sell a book or find readers. That kind of thinking gets in the way.

Maxine Hong Kingston

We're all under the same sky and walk the same earth; we're alive together during the same moment.

Maxine Hong Kingston

I've been writing since I was 7, but before that, I was orally making stories.

Maxine Hong Kingston

You can't eat straight A's.

Maxine Hong Kingston

You're too young to decide to live forever.

Maxine Hong Kingston

Remember when the narrator is bullying the other girl? She says to her, "Just say ‘ow.' Just say anything, just make a sound.” I guess that's the first step: make a sound. I think for everybody that just being able to speak up is a bravery, which they have to learn. But for a writer, it's to be able to find a style and a rhythm and a structure to be able to tell a story. I think that is another way of finding voice, and it's not that easy....

Maxine Hong Kingston

I feel that it's part of my work as an artist, a creator, a human being, is to integrate and to be more inclusive and to define American as large and not as exclusive. (Maxine Hong Kingston)

I think that in order to recognize a warm-hearted human being, you have to be a warm-hearted human being yourself.

Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston - Image

Photo: Wikimedia commons, CC BY 2.5

Occupation: Chinese Writer
Born: October 27, 1940
Quotes count: 22
Wikipedia: Maxine Hong Kingston

Related authors

Amy Tan 171

American Novelist

Alice Walker 201

American Author

Toni Morrison 245

American Novelist

Leslie Marmon Silko 8

American Writer

Chang-rae Lee 16

South Korean Novelist

Sandra Cisneros 79

American Writer

Louise Erdrich 71

American Writer

N. Scott Momaday 12

American Author

Jhumpa Lahiri 65

American Author

Joy Harjo 8

American Poet