Pol Artola

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

“Its refugee members were hobbled by their structural function in the American Dream, which was to be so unhappy as to make other Americans grateful for their happiness.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“What reeducation had taught me was that dedicated communists were like dedicated capitalists, incapable of nuance.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Committed

“We feel nostalgia for a place simply because we’ve lived there, whether we lived well or badly scarcely matters. The past is always beautiful. So, for that matter, is the future. Only the present hurts, and we carry it around like an abscess of suffering, our companion between two infinities of happiness and peace.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Soumission