Nam Le The Boat Quotes

The thing is not to write what no one else has written but to write what only you could have written.' I found this fragment in my old notebooks. The person who wrote that couldn't have known what would happen: how a voice hollows how words you once loved can wither on a page.

The thing is not to write what no one else could have written, but to write what only you could have written.

You couldn't think of after, you only thought of now, and come to think of it, you didn't do that either -- you were left with pools of memory, each stranded from the next by time pulling forward like a tide.

...how necessary it was to stay on the surface of things. Because beneath the surface was either dread or delirium.

You couldn't think of after, you only thought of now, and come to think of it, you didn't do that either- you were left with pools of memory, each stranded from the next by time pulling forward like a tide.

The river was behind him. The wind was full of acid. In the slow float of light I looked away, down at the river. On the brink of freezing, it gleamed in large, bulging blisters. The water, where it still moved, was black and braided. And it occurred to me then how it took hours, sometimes days, for the surface of a river to freeze over - to hold in its skin the perfect and crystalline world - and how that world could be shattered by a small stone dropped like a single syllable.

Chịu đựng những gì mình nghĩ mình không đủ sức chịu đựng mới là chịu đựng thực sự.

And it occurred to me then how it took hours, sometimes day, for the surface of a river to freeze over-to hold in its skin the perfect and crystalline world-and how that world could be shattered by a small stone dropped like a single syllable.

-honor won in youth grows with age.