--- title: "1 Smooth skin Quotes By Viet Thanh Nguyen" description: "1 Smooth skin quotes by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Plus more from Viet Thanh Nguyen and more Smooth skin sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1ae/viet-thanh-nguyen-5296_death_perhaps-her-abruptness-was-merely-part-o_1460689.jpg" --- > [“Perhaps her abruptness was merely part of her personality, for she had the appearance of the worst kind of bureaucrat, the aspiring one, from blunt, square haircut to blunt, clean fingernails to blunt, efficient pumps. But perhaps it was me,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/perhaps-her-abruptness-was-merely-part-of-her-personality-for-she-had/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1ae/viet-thanh-nguyen-5296_death_perhaps-her-abruptness-was-merely-part-o_1460689.jpg) ## More by Viet Thanh Nguyen > [“He had a Minnesotan’s admiration for resourcefulness in the face of hardship, bred by generations of people one very bad winter away from starvation…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/he-had-a-minnesotan-s-admiration-for-resourcefulness-in-the-face-of/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“When was the last time an American president found it worth his while to write a speech on the importance of art and literature?…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/when-was-the-last-time-an-american-president-found-it-worth-his-while/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“We don't succeed or fail because of fortune or luck. We succeed because we understand the way the world works and what we have…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/we-don-t-succeed-or-fail-because-of-fortune-or-luck-we-succeed/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“Innocence and guilt. These are cosmic issues. We’re all innocent on one level and guilty on another. Isn’t that what Original Sin is all…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/innocence-and-guilt-these-are-cosmic-issues-we-re-all-innocent-on-one/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“After all, nothing was more American than wielding a gun and committing oneself to die for freedom and independence, unless it was wielding that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/after-all-nothing-was-more-american-than-wielding-a-gun-and/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“She wondered what, if anything, she knew about love. Not much, perhaps, but enough to know that what she would do for him now…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/she-wondered-what-if-anything-she-knew-about-love-not-much-perhaps/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“One could choose between innocence and experience, but one could not have both.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/one-could-choose-between-innocence-and-experience-but-one-could-not/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“then, to present myself as just another immigrant, glad to be in the land where the pursuit of happiness was guaranteed in writing, which,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/then-to-present-myself-as-just-another-immigrant-glad-to-be-in-the/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“He was more embarrassed and discreet about sex than about things I thought more difficult, like killing people, which pretty much defined the history…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/he-was-more-embarrassed-and-discreet-about-sex-than-about-things-i/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“Perhaps forgiveness is overrated,”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/perhaps-forgiveness-is-overrated/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“While it is better to be loved than hated, it is also far better to be hated than ignored”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/while-it-is-better-to-be-loved-than-hated-it-is-also-far-better-to-be/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“Every full bottle of alcohol has a message in it, a surprise that one will not discover until one drinks it.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/every-full-bottle-of-alcohol-has-a-message-in-it-a-surprise-that-one/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“We shared a passion for words, but I preferred the silence of writing while she loved to talk. She”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/we-shared-a-passion-for-words-but-i-preferred-the-silence-of-writing/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“Are you going to be the kind of person who always pays the asking price?” my mother demanded. “Or the kind who fights to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/are-you-going-to-be-the-kind-of-person-who-always-pays-the-asking/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) > [“Even if they found themselves in Heaven, our countrymen would find occasion to remark that it was not as warm as Hell.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/viet-thanh-nguyen/even-if-they-found-themselves-in-heaven-our-countrymen-would-find/) [Viet Thanh Nguyen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/viet-thanh-nguyen/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/smooth-skin/viet-thanh-nguyen/#itemlist", "name": "1 Smooth skin Quotes By Viet Thanh Nguyen", "numberOfItems": 1, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Perhaps her abruptness was merely part of her personality, for she had the appearance of the worst kind of bureaucrat, the aspiring one, from blunt, square haircut to blunt, clean fingernails to blunt, efficient pumps. But perhaps it was me, still morally disoriented from the crapulent major’s death, as well as the apparition of his severed head at the wedding banquet. The emotional residue of that night was like a drop of arsenic falling into the still waters of my soul, nothing having changed from the taste of it but everything now tainted. So perhaps that was why when I crossed over the threshold into the marble foyer, I instantly suspected that the cause of her behavior was my race. What she saw when she looked at me must have been my yellowness, my slightly smaller eyes, and the shadow cast by the ill fame of the Oriental’s genitals, those supposedly minuscule privates disparaged on many a public restroom wall by semiliterates. I might have been just half an Asian, but in America it was all or nothing when it came to race. You were either white or you weren’t. Funnily enough, I had never felt inferior because of my race during my foreign student days. I was foreign by definition and therefore was treated as a guest. But now, even though I was a card-carrying American with a driver’s license, Social Security card, and resident alien permit, Violet still considered me as foreign, and this misrecognition punctured the smooth skin of my self-confidence. Was I just being paranoid, that all-American characteristic? Maybe Violet was stricken with colorblindness, the willful inability to distinguish between white and any other color, the only infirmity Americans wished for themselves. But as she advanced along the polished bamboo floors, steering clear of the dusky maid vacuuming a Turkish rug, I just knew it could not be so. The flawlessness of my English did not matter. Even if she could hear me, she still saw right through me, or perhaps saw someone else instead of me, her retinas burned with the images of all the castrati dreamed up by Hollywood to steal the place of real Asian men. Here I speak of those cartoons named Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, Number One Son, Hop Sing—Hop Sing!—and the bucktoothed, bespectacled Jap not so much played as mocked by Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. 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