We discuss selected and important features of hadronic molecules as one of promising forms of exotic hadrons near thresholds. Using examples of DD * systems such as X(3872) and Z c , emphasis is put on the roles of the one pion exchange interaction between them and their coupling to intrinsic quark states. Thus hadronic molecules emerge as admixtures of the dominant long-range hadron structure and short-range quark structure. For the pion exchange interaction, properties of the tensor force are analyzed in detail. More coupled channels supply more attractions, and heavier constituents suppress kinetic energies, providing more chances to form hadronic molecules of heavy hadrons. Throughout this article, we show details of basic ideas and methods. ‡ More complete references are given in section 4.1 for X(3872) and in section 5.1 for Z c and Z b . arXiv:1908.08790v1 [hep-ph] 23 Aug 2019 § Here D ( * ) stands for either D or D * meson. In this article we do not consider systems containing strange quarks, and therefore the notation q is used for light u, d quarks.