Amanda

“Our gathering was not as strange a thing as it might have appeared. A xenophobe would see a company of foreigners in camouflage uniforms, carrying out military drills and calisthenics, and might imagine us to be the lead element of some nefarious Asian invasion of the American homeland, a Yellow Peril in the Golden State, a diabolical dream of Ming the Merciless sprung to life. Far from it. The General's men, by preparing themselves to invade our now communist homeland, were in fact turning themselves into new Americans. After all, nothing was more American than wielding a gun and committing oneself to die for freedom and independence, unless it was wielding that gun to take away someone else’s freedom and independence.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“The unseen is almost always underlined with the unsaid.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“Death would hurt only for a moment, which was not so bad when one considered how much, and for how long, life hurt.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde