Viet Thanh Nguyen

I had the vertiginous feeling one gets standing at the precipice of an unresolved plan, for I had brought Bon and myself to the brink of disaster without knowing how to save us. But was not this how all plans developed, unknown to their maker until he wove for himself a parachute, or else melted into air?

If God did not exist, then neither did divine punishment, but this meant nothing to ghosts who did not need God.

We lie in wait for the right moment and the just cause, which, at this moment, is simply wanting to live.

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

That is what revolutionaries do. We sacrifice ourselves to save others.

Her routine was as predictable as the rotation of the earth.

lmost everything looked more beautiful from a distance, the earth becoming more perfect as one ascended and came closer to seeing the world from God's eyes, man's hovels and palaces disappearing, the peaks and valleys of geography fading to become strokes of a paintbrush on a divine sphere.

cheered by the optimism that one sometimes had at the beginning of strenuous exercise, a kind of helium that filled our lungs and carried us along

Love is being able to talk to someone else without effort, without hiding, and at the same time to feel absolutely comfortable not saying a word. At least that's one way I've figured out hot to describe love.

While it is better to be loved than hated, it is also far better to be hated than ignored.