Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Ocean Vuong

Quote by Ocean Vuong

Work

The Emperor of Gladness

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Ocean Vuong

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Ocean Vuong. more

You May Also Like

“The soldier above all other people," said MacArthur, "prays for peace, for they must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." There is wisdom in the words of these soldiers. There is wisdom in these tales of a "handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould. / Of the maimed, of the halt and of the blind in the rain and the cold." There is wisdom here, and we would do well to listen”

WarKillingSoldier
Book:On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
Create image

“Moral distance processes tend to provide a foundation upon which other killing-enabling processes can be built. In general they are less likely to produce atrocities than cultural distance processes, and they are more in keeping with the kind of "rules" (deterring aggression and upholding individual human dignity) that organizations such as the United Nations have attempted to uphold. But as with cultural distance, there is a danger associated with moral distance. That danger is, of course, that every nation seems to think that God is on its side.”

WarKillingAtrocity
Book:On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
Create image

“When I had flown in sixteenth months earlier, the view from above was of a green paradise. The landscape we swept over on the way out had been shelled, bombed, napalmed, and defoliated spreading cancerlike through virtually every village, every rice paddy, every patch of woods. There were craters everywhere, craters of all sizes, craters that overlapped one another, and I was brokenhearted by the extent of the destruction. We had come and laid waste, but we had not conquered. It was difficult to believe we had accomplished anything at all.”

WarBeautifulSad
Book:A Hundred Miles of Bad Road: An Armored Cavalryman in Vietnam, 1967-68
Create image

“It is the others that are sick. They are sick who gloat over news of victories and see conquered miles of territory rise resplendent above mounds of corpses. They are sick who stretch a wall of flags between themselves and their humanity so as not to know what crimes are being committed against their brothers in the beyond that they call "the front." Every man is sick who still can think, talk, discuss, sleep, knowing that other men holding their own entrails in their hands are crawling like half-crushed worms across the furrows in the fields and before they reach the stations for the wounded are dying off like animals, while somewhere, far away, a woman with passionate longing is dreaming beside an empty bed. All those are sick who can fail to hear the moaning, the gnashing of teeth, the howling, the crashing and bursting, the wailing and cursing and agonizing in death, because the murmur of everyday affairs is around them or the blissful silence of night.”

WarWorld War IWar CrimesWwi
Book:MEN IN WAR
Create image

“Do you really suppose history will remember him, this foot soldier? Not really. Yes, battles will be chronicled, and from that history will be written. It will be in the news, on television and even in books. People will talk about it in bars and coffeehouses. However, the focus will be on the progress of the war, the strategy and tactics, with maybe a mention or two of the commanding officer and how bravely, courageously and strategically he coordinated his troops to wage the battle. But when it comes to the regular people, the foot soldiers, it is a different story. For them, history is unforgiving and merciless. Who do you think will even care to know who Captain Gasha was? His acomplishments on the battlefield, his aches and pains? No-one will caer, history does not bother about minor details. Captain Gasha is only too aware that he is a fleeting speck in the annals of history, his name remembered by no-one.”

WarHistoryEthiopiaEritrea
Book:Oromay
Create image

“We watched hopelessly as distraction of people was coming to pass,the historians ready with their pen and paper writing who is right and who is wrong, little huma ity we had was all gone,we were all left standing holding the torch of shame that had no flame of virtue left to light the way, no prayers in any language or religion had saved the day, the evil continued in the name of self defence, in the name of civilised and uncevilised and the civilised hoisted their flag of victory for killing woman and children by the thousands and the wind carried their voices across the globe as we hang our heads in shame”

War
Author:Kenan Hudaverdi
Create image

“Postscript And some time make the time to drive out west Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, In September or October, when the wind And the light are working off each other So that the ocean on one side is wild With foam and glitter, and inland among stones The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans, Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white, Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads Tucked or cresting or busy underwater. Useless to think you’ll park and capture it More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there, A hurry through which known and strange things pass As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.”

PoetryNostalgie
Author:Seamus Heaney
Create image

“Tomorrow more Palestinians will die, but in the places where the bombs are built and launched it will have no bearing on mortgages, bills, employment... Tomorrow more Palestinians will die, but the unsaid thing is that it is all right because that's what those people do, they die... For millions of Westerners this will always prove true. But for millions more it will not.”

WarPoliticsGenocidePalestine
Book:One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Create image