Samuel Cao

“I have perhaps an overacute capacity for sadness and elation.”
― Frank Sinatra

“Look, I'm not here to lecture you about Eurocentricity or media bias; I just want to put forth the idea that maybe China has been the punching bag of the West for a very, very long time, and that nothing is gained from the continued demonization of its people... of my people. If you can accept that a single country can give birth to both a Donald Trump and a Donald Glover, a Steve Carell and a Stone Cold Steve Austin, you shouldn't have any difficulty accepting that the 1.3 billion people who call China home are just as varied in their ideologies and philosophies. There are the party officials, the pure-of-heart idealists, the Crazy Rich Asians, the activists, the social media influencers (smash that subscribe button!), the internet trolls and every conceivable thing in between–but perhaps most of all, there are the families like my parents, who simply did their best to stay out of trouble and survive from one day to the next.”
― Simu Liu, We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story

“Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost, / No birth, identity, form - no object of the world. / Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;... / The body, sluggish, aged, cold - the embers left from earlier fires, / The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again”
― Walt Whitman

“Of course, it meant something to me to be the son of immigrants. How could it not? How the hell could it not? I grew up for a few years thinking I was just another American kid. Then I discovered at—what? five? six?—I discovered that some people thought I was a dago. A wop. A guinea. You know, like I didn't have a fucking name. That's why years later, when Harry [James] wanted me to change my name, I said no way, baby. The name is Sinatra. Frank fucking Sinatra.”
― Frank Sinatra