Dust Child

Burning books was an incomprehensible act, and most people who didn't even read would fight for the right to open any book they chose. Those in power fear free minds, and nothing unlocked thinking like literature.

With the fire of war burning, it needed more men as firewood.

Everyone came from dust and would one day return to dust. Life is transitory, after all.

When you depart from your first anchor - your mother's womb - you will be pulled away by unexpected currents. If you can fill your boat with enough hope, enough self-belief, enough compassion, and enough curiosity, you will be ready to weather the storms of life.

She had tried to live an honest life, but the war had given her no choice. It had forced her to make up a version of herself which was acceptable to others. In a way, making up stories had been the basis of her survival and her success.

What the poet Nguyễn Duy wrote is so true. At the end of each war, whoever wins, the people lose.

During the Vietnam War, tens of children were born into relationships between American soldiers and Vietnamese women. Tragic circumstances separated most of these Amerasian children from their fathers and, later their mothers. Many have not found each other again.

Persistence turns a bar of iron into a needle.

What purpose did it serve anyway to teach children about hatred, to continue glorifying victory while not acknowledging the human costs on all sides?

Those in power feared free minds, and nothing unlocked thinking like literature.

Dan must love her. Why else did he tell her about his family? He never mentioned a wife or a girlfriend and she was sure he had none. She felt no need to ask; she trusted him to tell her the truth because he seemed so open.

For him, a conversation about books represented the most intimate discourse. It revealed a person’s values, beliefs, fears, and hopes. Experiencing the same books enabled

For him, poetry was the language of the soul. Writers could hide their feelings behind fiction, but had to bare their soul to poetry.