Quotessence
Home / Authors / Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllChildhoodMotherhoodMemoirPoetryIdentityBeautyImmigrationBiographyFictionLoveLifeAdulthoodSadnessSexWritingDeathGayNostalgiaOcean VuongDrugs

Famous Ocean Vuong Quotes

“But this day he was lost in the story he made of their bodies. The men were in the midst of saving a six-inch Mickey Mouse trapped in a prison made of black VHS tapes. ...Before he could make out his mother's face, the backhand blasted the side of his head, followed by another, then more. A rain of it. A storm of mother. The boy's grandmother, hearing the screams, rushed in and, as if by instinct, knelt on all fours over the boy, make a small and feeble house with her frame. Inside it, the boy curled into his clothes and waited for his mother to calm. Through his grandmother's trembling arms, he noticed the videocassettes had toppled over. Mickey Mouse was free.”

ChildhoodMotherhoodNostalgiaMemoirBiography
Book:On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Create image

“You spoke carefully, as if the story was a flame in your hands in the wind. ...I wanted to cry but did not yet know how to in English. So I did nothing. That was the day I learned how dangerous a colour can be. ...Even if colour is nothing but what the light reveals, that nothing has laws, and a boy on a pink bike must learn, above all else, the law of gravity.”

ChildhoodIdentityMemoirMasculinityHomophobia
Book:On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Create image