Quotessence
Home / Authors / Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

Famous Ocean Vuong Quotes

“I didn't know that would be the last time I'd see him, his neck scar lit blue by the diner's neon marquee. To see that little comma again, to put my mouth there, let my shadow widen the scar until, at last, there was no scar to be seen at all, just a vast and equal dark sealed by my lips. A comma superimposed by a period the mouth so naturally makes. Isn't that the saddest thing in the world, Ma? A comma forced to be a period?”

“I miss you more than I remember. They will tell you that to be political is to be merely angry, and therefore artless, depthless, “raw”, and empty. They will speak of the political with embarrassment, as if speaking of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. They will tell you that great writing ‘breaks free’ from the political, thereby ‘transcending’ the barriers of difference, uniting people toward universal truths. They’ll say this is achieved through craft above all. Let’s see how it’s made, they’ll say — as if how something is assembled is aliens to the impulse that created it. As if the first chair was hammered into existence without considering the human form. I know. It’s not fair that the word laughter is trapped inside slaughter.”