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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Book by Ocean Vuong · 30 quotes · Childhood, Motherhood, Memoir

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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Quotes

“In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly. Once, after my fourteenth birthday, crouched between the seats of an abandoned school bus in the woods, I filled my life with a line of cocaine. A white letter “I” glowed on the seat’s peeling leather. Inside me the “I” became a switchblade— and something tore. My stomach forced up but it was too late. In minutes, I became more of myself. Which is to say the monstrous part of me got so large, so familiar, I could want it. I could kiss it.”

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“Cocaine, laced with oxycodone, makes everything fast and still at once, like when you’re on the train and, gazing across the fogged New England fields, at the brick Colt factory where cousin Victor works, you see its blackened smokestack— parallel to the train, like it’s following you, like where you’re from won’t let you off the hook. Too much joy, I swear, is lost in our desperation to keep it.”

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“The say addiction might be linked to bipolar disorder. It's the chemicals in our brains, they say. I got the wrong chemicals, Ma. Or rather, I don't get enough of one or the other. They have a pill for it. They have an industry. They make millions. Did you know people get rich off of sadness? I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, 'it's been an honor to serve my country.”

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“1964: O zamanlar ABD Hava Kuvvetleri kurmay başkanı olan General Curtis Le May, Kuzey Vietnam'a kitlesel bomba taarruzunu başlatırken, Vietnamlıları bombalarla "Taş Devri'ne geri göndermeyi" planladığını söylemişti. Demek ki bir halkı yok etmek onları zamanda geriye göndermek anlamına geliyor. Sonuçta ABD ordusu, genişliği California' dan daha fazla olmayan bir ülkenin tepesine on bin tondan fazla bomba yağdıracaktı Dünya Savaşı boyunca atılmış tüm bombaların toplamından daha fazlasını.”

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“Maybe in the next life we'll meet each other for the first time- believing in everything but the harm we're capable of. Maybe we'll be the opposite of buffaloes. We'll grow wings and spill over the cliff as a generation of monarchs, heading home. Green Apple. Like snow covering the particulars of the city, they will say we never happened, that our survival was a myth. But they're wrong. You and I, we were real. We laughed knowing joy would tear the stitches from our lips. Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places. Underneath the grid is a field- it was always there- where to be lost is never to be wrong, but simply more. As a rule, be more. As a rule, I miss you. As a rule,"little" is always smaller than "small". Don't ask me why. I'm sorry I don't call enough. Green Apple. I'm sorry I keep saying How are you? when I really mean Are you happy?”

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