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.

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

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.

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?

Every generation before had a semblance of chance, but we have the end of the world. This end of the world. It’s beautiful, it’s crushing, and I wish we could think of a future without a thousand ways of how we must change to endure it.

Can I be everything and nothing at the same time? Extra fat, extra parts, narrow bones. A shadow you know is there but whose shape remains unseen until it emerges on concrete. I want a body that’s easy to manipulate. What a gift that no one sees inside my mind. What a curse that no one sees inside my mind.

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.

If this is the end of the world, I don’t want to be careful with my heart, my body.” I say, sure Saffy would be proud. “This is my choice. It’s me.

Secondly, sharks eat their own siblings in utero. If my little brother is alive, he is the last person on earth I would kill.

We can work hard all we want, but if the bootstraps are barely holding on by a thread, it snaps anyway. I’m tired of following the lessons set out by others. I want to find a new way forward, even if it takes deconstructing down to the marrow.

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.

I’m making bánh xèo

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Sometimes, the things we want to hear, it's better that we don't ask for them. It's more meaningful that way.

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

Anger is a fire. Anger is adrenaline. It's kept me going for so long, burning for so long, with ambition, with pettiness.

Mirrors show a you that no one else sees, and you begin to wonder if either is really truly you. Although I know better than to fall for it, I still think: is my nose too wide? Too flat? Is my hair too this, or that? Are there gills on my neck? Have I lost my mind? Am I a girl enough—the right kind? Going through life invisible is easier, but the temptation is still there to stand before a mirror and call the worst monsters to you. Candyman, Bloody Mary, Nhung, Nhung, Nhung.

Like so many parents, Jimmy thinks his daughter is fit only for his hopes. But when we inherit those, we also inherit the mistakes. We are the ones to live the consequences.

Monsterhood is a girl's body you don't belong in.

I've worn heavy clothes in hot weather long enough to know it doesn't stop men from teasing me or me blaming myself.

Adults having their shit figured out is an illusion of childhood. You wake up one day and the mirage is gone. The soft gold sunlight now appears too yellow, too harsh. Your parents aren't bickering cutely but arguing, their faces red. Even when you're hurt, they will tell you your wounds aren't real. Better yet, put a sweater on it and hide away.

Rage breaks all my boundaries.

You must do things you aren't ready for, or else it'll become a pattern.

It's strange, how little love you can survive on until you experience the warmth of people who choose you despite everything.

Every generation before had a semblance of a chance, but we have the end of the world. This end of the world. It’s beautiful, it’s crushing, and I wish we could think of a future without a thousand ways of how we must change to endure it.

Alligators might attack to defend their territory, but men attack to make their territory. Every body is a conquering ground.

Coral reef get their color from algae that live inside of them. When it’s too hot, or the ocean is too acidic, they die like that. The corals get stressed and expel the algae

All things in nature are connected.

sharks eat their own siblings in utero.

Can I be everything and nothing at the same time?

What a gift that no one sees inside my mind. What a curse that no one sees inside my mind.

It’s a bad habit of mine, finding the worst in every situation, but no one has taught me to hope.