Gabriela

“In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Có nhớ mẹ không? I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me?

I miss you more than I remember you.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“People are awkward, they don’t always know what to do or say. Don’t hold it against them. You never know what’s in their hearts.”
― Janet Skeslien Charles, The Paris Library

“All this time I told myself we were born from war—but I was wrong, Ma. We were born from beauty.
Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence—but that violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Libraries are lungs, [...] books the fresh air breathed in to keep the heart beating, to keep the brain imagining, to keep hope alive.”
― Janet Skeslien Charles, The Paris Library