"As a woman, I was very much influenced by the Japanese culture. My saving grace is that my mother was an extremely strong woman, a person in her own right; she took no guff from anybody, including white people, and I think that helps…"

"There are only a few stories that I've ever wanted to tell…I wanted to record our lives so they wouldn't be lost. I didn't realize what a responsibility that was. I only wanted to put down a few footprints of our sojourn here, at this time, in this place."

"On stage the interaction with the audience happens while performing. In fact, the actor needs and depends on the audience response. It not only energizes and enhances the actor’s performance but is a source of much satisfaction. When acting in film, you are acting for the camera so you are not dealing directly with the audience…"

"Memories are raw materials that he mines. When dealing with memories that are especially painful or unpleasant, I think the writer steps aside to save his sanity: sometimes writing becomes a cathartic experience. Tragic or sad stories are part of life and should be treated equally with happy stories."

"I wrote it from a standpoint of an actor. Some playwrights, they forget about the actor and they write impossible things, you know, so that you're forced to change your costume in a second -- [laughs] -- because the playwright never thought of that. But as an actor, you think of those things, and I thought I wrote it from the actor's point of view because I also acted in the play, and that's a hard thing to do; to act, concentrate on one part when you, you've written the whole, other parts…"

"Even at school, we were, as I say, we were separated, and...and friends were Japanese. So, yeah, I think I considered myself Japanese more than Japanese American, though we would hear that we, we were citizens of this country, and so we had certain rights and so forth. But the parents were strangers, outsiders, and they had to kind of maneuver with the, the racism and pressure and so that, yeah, I felt more Japanese, I think."

"Making art, any art, you are in some way trying to imitate life, and the ways in which that succeeds or fails is fascinating to me…"

"The play is my gut's response to stories that have to do with my own bloodline. I think it is a great luxury and adventure to be able to dive into one's own history, one's own lineage, psychology and story, and illumine and at the same time fictionalize it."

"To me the play is never just the play but it’s the whole journey to it."

"To me, it’s always been a matter of: Do your homework and be committed to the extent that you can capture that world. I think I’m open."

"I don’t think anyone understands the Asian Americans’ place amidst this white and black culture. There’s something very specific to being Asian American that other peoples aren’t getting, and we haven’t learned how to define it, even amongst ourselves. We’re the Other. We’re always the Other, we can be here forever and we’re still foreign. We’ve impacted the culture, but third, fourth, fifth, sixth generations and still, you walk down the street and someone will look at you, and you will be foreign. That is what disturbs me."

"One thing I have to say about Japanese anime is that there’s a certain sort of tone there that bypasses the Asian part. And the characters really turn into something more Western. I’d like to see a true Japanese character. We don’t need to make the eyes look round, we don’t need the light in her hair. We can have dark hair and the eyes look like mine. They can be speaking English. We have Asian-Americans. And certainly there are plenty of people from Hawaii that are very Asian and totally local. It’s part of America…"

"Nothing ever stops me. Certainly coming into Hollywood, I knew that there would be certain limitations. But I also couldn’t play a woman or I couldn’t play a white hero. To play Asian and to speak with accents because I speak Japanese, it never really bothered me. All I always look for in every piece is how can I use this piece to move to the next step? So the worst thing about playing Asian bad guys would be to not be remembered…"

"One was my movement, which I’m very conscious of in films, especially coming from martial arts. Think about how many times a character is seen just sitting or walking or standing, it’s a lot of time in film and it says so much about a character. So I’ve always been keen to pay attention to movement and that was one thing he said he noticed. Never have I heard a director talk like that about me. And also he said that the eyes were important because it really has to come through the make-up. So he was interested in those two aspects especially…"

"Hollywood was a detour, although my mother was an aristocrat from Tokyo who ran away to join the theatre, so acting is in my genes. I've played a lot of bad guys, including a torturing acupuncturist in my first B-movie, but one of my favourite roles was a surfing grandfather from Hawaii in the film Johnny Tsunami. My father's family are Hawaiian, so it was the closest to my own personality."

"In terms of being an Asian American writer, I'm mixed race. I think there are issues about being racially mixed that are different that for people who are Japanese-American, or Korean-American, or Chinese-American in background. People don't know where I come from. My father is Japanese. My mother is Latina. There is a line in the play, "I look at you and I don't know what i'm seeing." I think a lot of people look at me and don't know what they're seeing. There are issues that people who are of mixed heritage deal with that are complicated in terms of finding their home in a specific ethnic group."

"I think it is dangerous to run away from history. I am much more interested in looking at something difficult and really fraught with a lot of problems and then challenging it from a close perspective, as opposed to just not dealing with it when creating the characters or the story."

"Writing chose me…It came out of the need to learn about my heritage."

"A story's narrative demands ebb and flow when so much time is covered. There has to be change in order to create movement in a story. And then again, the time period and the culture had a lot to do with their staying power. Today, the world is much more fast paced, and hitting a stagnation point might mean the end of a relationship."

"It came mainly from my desire to learn more about the Japanese culture. I've also always been fascinated by social groups who live and work outside the mainstream. So the world of sumo wrestling within the Japanese culture had been an ongoing interest, something I've always wanted to write about. It covered such enticing material and I've always had so many questions I wanted answered…"

"I'm as American as apple pie…And yet when Chinese New Year comes along I still have to be very careful about not saying anything wrong, because that sets the mood for the whole year. All these Chinese traditions from my mother's family are with me, and they all come out in my books. But sometimes you have to step away from them."

"The goal of the [[War on Terrorism|war [on terrorism] ]] is more than just getting oil and fuel. The United States is intent on taking over the world... It's important we all understand that the main terrorist and the main enemy of the world's people is the U.S. government. Racism has been a weakness of this country from its beginning. Throughout history, all people of color, and all people who don't see eye-to-eye with the U.S. government have been subject to American terror."

"Throughout this book, Martínez reminds readers again and again of why we should balance the wisdom of experience with the fire of youth and honor both perspectives. So many great leaders have boldly embodied this ethic, from the recently departed such as Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, and Cedric Robinson, to those who carry on like Jamala Rogers, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, and Betita Martinez herself."

"When I think what the US military is doing, brazenly bombing country after country, to take oil resources, bringing about coups, assassinating leaders of other countries, and pitting neighbor nations against each other, and demonizing anyone who disagrees with US policy, and detaining and deporting countless immigrants from all over the world, I thank Islam for bin Laden. America’s greed, aggressiveness, and self-righteous arrogance must be stopped. War and weaponry must be abolished."

"I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire. To me, he is in the category of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro, all leaders that I admire ... [who] had severe dislike for the US government and those who held power in the US. I think all of them felt the US government and its spokesmen were all arrogant, racist, hypocritical, self-righteous, and power hungry..... You asked, 'Should freedom fighters support him?' Freedom fighters all over the world, and not just in the Muslim world, don’t just support him; they revere him; they join him in battle. He is no ordinary leader or an ordinary Muslim."