AtomicQuote

Maxine Hong Kingston Quote

Allen Ginsberg instructs: First thought, best thought. Oh, to have my every spontaneous thought count as poetry! No draft after draft like a draft horse.Clayton Eshleman, laughing, said, 'First thought best thought' is not 'First best ' Ginsberg does rewrite. I'm sure he does.

Maxine Hong Kingston

Allen Ginsberg instructs: First thought, best thought. Oh, to have my every spontaneous thought count as poetry! No draft after draft like a draft horse.Clayton Eshleman, laughing, said, 'First thought best thought' is not 'First best ' Ginsberg does rewrite. I'm sure he does.

Tags: writing craft, writing life, writing process

Related Quotes

Cliches are the viruses that infect your writing with diseases.

Pawan Mishra

Cliches are the viruses that infect your writing with diseases.

Tags: aspiring writers, authors, books, cliches, creative writing, fiction, fundamentals of creative writing, fundamentals of writing, literature, on writing

Turn those deep feelings and obsessions of your heart into captivating pieces of literature.

Pawan Mishra

Turn those deep feelings and obsessions of your heart into captivating pieces of literature.

Tags: artist, arts and humanities, aspiring writers, authors, books, creative people, creative process, creative writing, creativity, fiction

I'm not a writer. Ernest Hemingway was a writer. I just have a vivid imagination and type 90 WPM.

Tiffany Madison

I'm not a writer. Ernest Hemingway was a writer. I just have a vivid imagination and type 90 WPM.

Tags: ernest hemingway, writing, writing craft, writing philosophy, writing process

Create a world in front of your readers where they can taste, smell, touch, hear, see, and move. Else they are likely going to move on to another book.

Pawan Mishra

Create a world in front of your readers where they can taste, smell, touch, hear, see, and move. Else they are likely going to move on to another book.

Tags: aspiring writers, authors, books, creative people, creative process, creative writing, creativity, fiction, fundamentals of creative writing, fundamentals of writing

As you become a better writer, the writing becomes more difficult. You toil harder to tell a story in a lesser number of words.

Pawan Mishra

As you become a better writer, the writing becomes more difficult. You toil harder to tell a story in a lesser number of words.

Tags: aspiring writers, authors, books, creative people, creative process, creative writing, creativity, fiction, fundamentals of creative writing, fundamentals of writing

Be a good reader first, if you wish to become a good writer.

Pawan Mishra

Be a good reader first, if you wish to become a good writer.

Tags: art, arts and humanities, aspiring writers, authors, books, creative process, creative writing, fiction, fundamentals of creative writing, fundamentals of writing

A writer can do without food for a few hours, but not without the sight of books.

Pawan Mishra

A writer can do without food for a few hours, but not without the sight of books.

Tags: aspiring writers, authors, books, creative people, creative process, creative writing, creativity, fiction, fundamentals of creative writing, fundamentals of writing

Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.

C.S. Lewis

Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.

Tags: c s lewis, till we have faces, writing, writing craft

The secret to good writing is to use small words for big ideas, not to use big words for small ideas.

Oliver Markus

The secret to good writing is to use small words for big ideas, not to use big words for small ideas.

Tags: advice for writers, advice, brevity, honesty, secrets, simplicity, simplifying, writers, writers and writing, writers on thinking

Ideas either age like fine wine or rot like potatoes over time.

Pawan Mishra

Ideas either age like fine wine or rot like potatoes over time.

Tags: aspiring writers, authors, books, creative people, creative process, creative writing, creativity, fiction, fundamentals of creative writing, fundamentals of writing
About Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston (Chinese: 湯婷婷; born Maxine Ting Ting Hong; October 27, 1940) is an American novelist. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with a BA in English in 1962. Kingston has written three novels and several works of non-fiction about the experiences of Chinese Americans.
Kingston has contributed to the feminist movement with such works as her memoir The Woman Warrior, which discusses gender and ethnicity and how these concepts affect the lives of women. She has received several awards for her contributions to Chinese American literature, including the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1981 for China Men.
Kingston has received significant criticism for reinforcing racist stereotypes in her work and for fictionalizing traditional Chinese stories in order to appeal to Western perceptions of Chinese people. She has also garnered criticism from female Asian scholars for her "'over-exaggeration' of Asian American female oppression".