“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 the Old Man with shovelfuls of dirt and mud. But with his body in the soil, in the specific silt of this family's land, everything on it was bound to die. Rancor seeped from his eyelids,… — Monique Truong Copy Share
“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 young woman. Gray is the color you wanted because you were practical even then, knew that gray is a color you would grow into, still wear when your hair turned white. You snap yourself into this… — Monique Truong Copy Share
“The irony of acquiring a foreign tongue is that I have amassed just enough cheap, serviceable words to fuel my desires and never, never enough lavish, imprudent ones to feed them. It is true, though, that there are some French words that I have picked up quickly, in fact, words that I cannot remember not knowing. As if I had… — Monique Truong Copy Share
“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 only to him. Thomas told me of an island off the coast of a different world. On this island, there stood a city whose buildings were made of glass. He told me that at the heart… — Monique Truong Copy Share
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 told her, so that she could give them grandsons. She had been prepared to perform that task from the very beginning. When her body took the first step, her mother found for her a husband. A… — Monique Truong Copy Share
“There is no forgiveness in ancestor worship, only retribution and eternal debt.” — Monique Truong Copy Share Image
