# Quote — Maxine Hong Kingston, Tripmaster Monkey

> The lights of the city on hills make a vertical shimmer from sky straight into the water, like a backdrop, like a dream. (p37)

- Author: [Maxine Hong Kingston](https://www.leafyquotes.com/maxine-hong-kingston.md)
- Book: [Tripmaster Monkey](https://www.leafyquotes.com/maxine-hong-kingston/tripmaster-monkey.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maxine_Hong_Kingston#Tripmaster_Monkey:_His_Fake_Book_(1989)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/maxine-hong-kingston/tripmaster-monkey/the-lights-of-the

## More from this book

> They think that Americans are either white or Black. I can't wear that civil-rights button with the Black hand and the white hand shaking each other. I have a nightmare-after duking it out, someday Blacks and whites will shake hands over my head. I'm the little yellow man beneath the bridge of their hands and overlooked. (p307)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/maxine-hong-kingston/tripmaster-monkey/they-think-that.md)

> 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)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/maxine-hong-kingston/tripmaster-monkey/do-i-have.md)

> What's crazy is the idea that revolutionaries must shoot and bomb and kill, that revolution is the same as war. (p305)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/maxine-hong-kingston/tripmaster-monkey/whats-crazy-is-the.md)