“Every day when I walk the streets of this city, I am just that. I am an Indochinese laborer, generalized and indiscriminate, easily spotted and readily identifiable all the same. It is this curious mixture of careless disregard and notoriety… — 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
