“Kelly and I saw a future (otherwise known as the sixth grade) in which we would remain invisible and unchanged while around us other girls suddenly bloomed. In Kelly's version, the girls burst, blousy peonies after the first hot summer… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“Anh Minh believed that if he could save three minutes here, five minutes there, then one day he could tally them all up and… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“But that, I am afraid, was my mistake from the very beginning, the fatal flaw in my design. I thought that I could suffocate… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“When they are like this, I remember what the man on the bridge had told me: "The French are all right in France." What… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“I know you are in your best áo dài. You bought it when you were just eighteen. Gray is not a color for a… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“The irony of acquiring a foreign tongue is that I have amassed just enough cheap, serviceable words to fuel my desires and never, never… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“Language is a house with a host of doors, and I am too often uninvited and without the keys.” — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“I am forced to admit that I am, to them, nothing but a series of destinations with no meaningful expanses in between. ” — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“She laughed that sharp, quick laugh that smart girls all had, until they found out that the sound of brilliance flashing made boys nervous.… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“After a week's worth of failed fairy tales—stories that made my eyelids flutter open and not shut—my father tried telling me stories that belonged… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
Alcohol, I had learned, was an eloquent if somewhat inaccurate interpreter. I had placed my trust that December night in glass after glass of… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“Obey,' like 'worship,' is a strong word. Her mother and father had told her so, and she believed them. They gave her life, they… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“There is no forgiveness in ancestor worship, only retribution and eternal debt.” — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
“As a father, he was generous. More or less. The "less" was because he never gave me what I wanted. He gave me only… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
Words, do not have twins in every language. Sometimes they only have distant cousins, and sometimes they pretend that they are not even related. — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
Although we strap time to our wrists, stuff it into our pockets, hang it on our walls, a perpetually moving picture for every room… — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
