Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Perhaps forgiveness is overrated,”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“If youth was not wasted, how could it be youth? Perhaps”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Remember, you're not half of anything, you're twice of everything.”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“would fall in love with the young, handsome,”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“You aren’t afraid of the things you believe in,” he”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“In the end, my father had it right. He called me nothing at all.”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“slogans were empty suits draped on the corpse of an idea?”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“I was the kind bothered less by sinning than by unoriginality.”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“I had to stop periodically to savor not only my soup but the marrow of my memories.”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“A nineteenth-century Russian novel and vodka accompanied each other perfectly.”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Hollywood did not just make horror movie monsters, it was its own horror movie monster, smashing me under its foot.”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“No, we fought to the tunes of love songs, for we were the Italians of Asia.”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“I cannot be the only one who believes that if others just saw who I really was, then I would be understood…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Too much freedom of the press is unhealthy for a democracy, I declared.”

— 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.”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“So it was that we soaped ourselves in sadness and we rinsed ourselves with hope,”

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“We instinctively knew that in order for Americans to find refugees like us acceptable, they first had to find our food digestible…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“I liked my scotch undiluted, like I liked my truth. Unfortunately, undiluted truth was as affordable as eighteen-year-old single malt scotch.”

— 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…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“it. I was venturing into a wilderness many had explored before me, crossing the threshold separating those who had killed from those…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“He responded with one of those looks of pity and amusement I was by now so used to getting, the kind that…

— 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…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Our proper mode in situations where demand was high and supply was low was to elbow, jostle, crowd, and hustle, and, if…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Although he could have shot me or turned us back, he did what I gambled every honorable man forced to take a…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“I pitied the French for their naivete in believing that they had to visit a country in order to exploit it. Hollywood…

— 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…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Before I only wanted to change the world. I still want that, but it was ironic how I never wanted to change…

— 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…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“The average American, or European, who feels that refugees or immigrants threaten their jobs does not recognize that the real culprits for…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“I came to understand that in the United States, land of the fabled American dream, it is un-American to be a refugee.…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“My parents did not grant me so much as an allowance. When I had asked for one in the fourth grade, my…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“IN WRITING THIS BOOK, I returned again and again to what people call my homeland, where my parents were born, as was…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“I can’t help but feel he’s a little disappointed in me because I don’t bow whenever I see him. When he interviewed…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Dare I admit it? Dare I confess? America, land of supermarkets and superhighways, of supersonic jets and Superman, of supercarriers and the…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“When the little man threw me to the deck, the fall bruised the back of my head. When he ripped my shirt…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“As the eldest son, he had duties, and he was used to working, having done so since leaving school at the age…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Perhaps her abruptness was merely part of her personality, for she had the appearance of the worst kind of bureaucrat, the aspiring…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Él se volvió a reír, esta vez sin humor. Estoy siendo duro conmigo mismo. A mí no me llames hombre ni soldado.…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Typical white man behavior, Ms. Mori said. Have you ever noticed how a white man can learn a few words of some…

— 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…

— Viet Thanh Nguyen