Derrick Nguyen

“People say I'm extravagant. I tell them Yes, that's right, and I'm offering this to myself in memory of all my suffering.”
― Dương Thu Hương, Paradise of the Blind

“Those kids aren't dumb. But the people who run these schools want to make sure they don't get smart: they are really teaching the kids to be slaves.”
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

“The world sees what it wishes to see, or, when the chips are down, what you tell it to see: it does not wish to see who, or what, or why you are.”
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

“I remember my first winter in Russia. The bitter cold that singed my ears, crept into my gloves, tightened around my body like a vise. I can still see the road to the textile factory, the deep banks of snow heaped up in front of the bus stations. I remember the exhaustion, the hours hunched over the machines, trudging back to the residence, in the snow, numb with cold, still shaking from the jolt of the machines, choking on the smoke and the dust.
After days like that, our evening meal was like a benediction. We calculated the price of everything--butter, cheese, meat--leaving ourselves just enough to keep going, to keep from falling on our faces in the snow. The rest was always for our families.”
― Dương Thu Hương, Paradise of the Blind