Grace Kang

“Americans are a confused people because they can't admit this contradiction. They believe in a universe of divine justice where the human race is guilty of sin, but they also believe in a secular justice where human beings are presumed innocent.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“Americans on the average do not trust intellectuals, but they are cowed by power and stunned by celebrity.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“Movies were America’s way of softening up the rest of the world, Hollywood relentlessly assaulting the mental defenses of audiences with the hit, the smash, the spectacle, the blockbuster, and, yes, even the box office bomb. It mattered not what story these audiences watched. The point was that it was the American story they watched and loved, up until the day that they themselves might be bombed by the planes they had seen in American movies.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“If youth was not wasted, how could it be youth?”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer