vini

“We are defined by the places we hold in the web of others’ lives.”
― Ken Liu, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

“I sure did live in this world.'
'Really? What have you got to show for it?'
'Show? To who? I got my mind. And what goes on in it. Which is to say, I got me.'
'Lonely, ain't it?'
'Yes. But my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“I shall take the heart. [...] For brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.”
― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

“Where did we learn about the American dream? What role models were available to us? You pontificate on the meaning of Michael Chang. Do the lessons passed down to us by books or movies to TV apply to our lives as Asian kids with Asian parents, or do they make us feel inadequate? Why are we always working so hard, proving our smarts, living up to someone else's standards? Maybe it's all a trap. Why are we looking out for help, when it's all around us? We are not men without a culture. We just have to make it ourselves.”
― Hua Hsu, Stay True