Tran Thanh Quotes

Who am I but someone others define? It's easier to be a stereotype. It hurts when you are yourself.

Don’t know why I’m telling you this, except to say adults guess what’s best for their kids, and sometimes they’re wrong. Maybe even a lot of the time.

It isn't about me. Like people, places change over time, desperate to stay relevant.

Blood slides from the sill and onto the wall, where it inches toward the floor. I'll let it stain, because it's exactly what he wanted: a mark on Vietnam.

There's something animal in the way I want her —chest as fragile as an overfull teacup. I still don't know her well, but like a dream, she's every girl I ever wanted and was afraid of.

Like the cliche, she's different from other girls. She'll change me. She'll make me brave. She's dead.

I am a tourist in the country where my parents were born. Even my clothes have been here before me.

Our parents save such stories for the most random and disorienting moments to share, like while peeling hột vịt lộn.

Neither of us has the language or time to figure it out yet, and there's a power in never being known because no one can use you against you.

My heart is here, the Lady of Many Tongues had said days before. Here, where I see how beautiful Đà Lạt is. I had thought the same of Saigon, despite the smoke and lights and buildings—how it could've been mine in another life. A different one, not necessarily better or worse.

Hydrangeas climb the crumbling walls beside tall and thin windows, their white blooms kissed with lazy bees. They're the most loved things here.

Revenge has always been easy to understand, but hunger implies that something can be filled. What is a ghost's limit when they have no real body?

I know this is a dream because I am not afraid of my father.

Want a souvenir?" Florence asks when we near the clothing stalls, her hair shining over a shoulder, as if I want anything but her.

Mountains rise from the mist like candles in an uneven buttercream.

We walk through cathedrals where she was told she must lay her sins, but it's me who hears them, me whom she trusts with a whisper that starts with who I could have been.

I’m making bánh xèo

Mountains rise from the mist like candles in an uneven buttercream. I want to smash them down with my thumbs. It’s ridiculous that Đà Lạt is so beautiful when I am this angry.

My jaw is locked tight, so the heart can’t escape upward in a panic.

And Florence, well. I really look at her. Her hair is windswept and wild, shining down her back. The cold has lashed her cheeks red during the drive to me. I can’t help but smile. When those clever eyes brighten, I know that she’s noticed.

It sounds ridiculous and yet real and threatening—every house learning as you learn to live inside it. Every house listening. If Nhà Hoa learns anything from me, it’s weak mind games and bisexual panic.

Anger is what she deserves to hold in place of self-deprecation

Just because you feel lucky to be alive and fed doesn’t mean you can’t be angry.