Haley Allen

“It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus— that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying with our entire curved and silenced selves, more, more, more. I want to insist that are being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication. And so what? So what if all I ever made of my life was more of it?”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“How can we know, with a house full of bread, that it’s hunger, not people, that survives?”
― Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother

“Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“I promise you, I was here. I felt things that made death so large it was indistinguishable from air—and I went on destroying inside it like wind in a storm.”
― Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother