Before we can leave our parents, they stuff our heads like the suitcases which they jam-pack with homemade underwear. Maxine Hong Kingston More Quotes by Maxine Hong Kingston More Quotes From Maxine Hong Kingston In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment. Maxine Hong Kingston inspirational peace school In a time of destruction, create something. Maxine Hong Kingston destruction hope A story can take you through a whole process of searching, seeking, confronting, through conflicts, and then to a resolution. As the storyteller and the listener, we go through a story together. Maxine Hong Kingston conflict stories together We're all under the same sky and walk the same earth; we're alive together during the same moment. Maxine Hong Kingston alive together sky I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes. Maxine Hong Kingston teaching mind rooms 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 women change motivational Long ago in China, knot-makers tied string into buttons and frogs, and rope into bell pulls. There was one knot so complicated that it blinded the knot-maker. Finally an emperor outlawed this cruel knot, and the nobles could not order it anymore. If I had lived in China, I would have been an outlaw knot-maker. Maxine Hong Kingston buttons long-ago order 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, swordswomen. Even if she had to rage across all China, a swordswoman got even with anybody who hurt her family. Perhaps women were once so dangerous that they had to have their feet bound. Maxine Hong Kingston girl hurt feet When alone I am not aware of my race or my sex, both in need of social contexts for definition. Maxine Hong Kingston race sex needs Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people. Maxine Hong Kingston crosses path people Chinese Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies? Maxine Hong Kingston diversity mother justice Joy and life exist nowhere but the present. Maxine Hong Kingston joy Hunger also changes the world - when eating can't be a habit, then neither can seeing. Maxine Hong Kingston hunger vision world 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 oral-tradition dont-change stories The images of peace are ephemeral. The language of peace is subtle. The reasons for peace, the definitions of peace, the very idea of peace have to be invented, and invented again Maxine Hong Kingston ephemeral definitions ideas Perhaps women were once so dangerous that they had to have their feet bound Maxine Hong Kingston bounds dangerous feet Not many women got to live out the daydream of women—to have a room, even a section of a room, that only gets messed up when she messes it up herself. Maxine Hong Kingston messed-up daydreaming rooms The swordswoman and I are not so dissimilar. May my people understand the resemblance soon so that I can return to them. What we have in common are the words at our backs. The idioms for revenge are 'report a crime' and 'report to five families.' The reporting is the vengeance-not the beheading, not the gutting, but the words. Maxine Hong Kingston revenge inspiring people 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 mad differences people How unlike a dead fish a live fish is. Maxine Hong Kingston fishes
