Maxine Hong Kingston

Children, everybody, here's what to do during war: In a time of destruction, create something. A poem. A parade. A community. A school. A vow. A moral principle. One peaceful moment. (Epilogue)

Humans are basically good. That's why it takes so much training to march march march kill kill kill kill. ("Earth" p269)

Linda wrote in her Ph.D. dissertation: "Vietnam duty provided the most unambiguous source of antiwar sentiment." War causes peace. (p227)

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)

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)

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

He did too have a philosophy of life: Do the right thing by whoever crosses your path. Those coincidental people are your people. (p223)

Whatever there is when there isn't war has to be invented. What do people do in peace? Peace has barely been thought. (p306)

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

In the whole dark universe, I've met you at this bit of fire, and we speak with each other, and listen to each other. All of life and the war led up to this present time of being here with you. (p209)

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

Leaning with his back against the door, he could hear this voice, then that one. All was silent but for one voice at a time telling a life. (p214)