Sublime

I found the Vietnamese in America both intimate and alien, but Vietnam itself was simply alien.

Over the years, in my darkest moments of despair, I would think of Thay or he would appear in my dreams, and my being would be imbued with his sense of love and trust.

The most precious gift you can give to the one you love is your true presence.

our fecund little country no longer produced significant amounts of rice, rubber, and tin, cultivating

The house was silent as an unexploded grenade.

I didn’t know that the war was still inside you, that there was a war to begin with, that once it enters you it never leaves—but merely echoes, a sound forming the face of your own son. Boom.