Quotes from Inside Out & Back Again

Thanhha Lai ·  272 pages

Rating: (30.5K votes)


“Oh, my daughter,
at times you have to fight,
but preferably
not with your fists.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“This year I hope
I truly learn
to fly-kick
not to kick anyone
so much as
to fly.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“Mother says,
People share
when they know they have escaped hunger.

Shouldn't people share
because there is hunger?”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“Whoever invented English
should have learned
to spell.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“People living on others' goodwill cannot afford political opinions.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again



“Mother tells me,
They tease you
because they adore you.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“Paperwork, paperwork with a woman who pats my head while shaking her own. I step back, hating pity, having learned from Mother that the pity giver feels better, never the pity receiver.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“How can we scramble away like rats, without honor, without dignity, when everyone must help rebuild the country?”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“Everyone knows the ship could sink, unable to hold the piles of bodies that keep crawling on like raging ants from a disrupted nest. But no one is heartless enough to say stop because what if they had been stopped before their turn?”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“Mother warns
how we act today
foretells the whole year”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again



“Why no s for two deer,
but an s for two monkeys?

Brother Quang says
no one knows.

So much for rules!

Whoever invented English should be bitten by a snake.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“Black seeds spill like clusters of eyes, wet and crying.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


No, Mr. Johnston doesn't have a horse, nor has he ever ridden one. What kind of a cowboy is he?”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“Mostly, I wish I were still smart.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“We glide and I feel as if I'm floating.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again



“Our lives
will twist and twist,
intermingling the old and the new
until it doesn't matter
which is which.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“She was promised to Father at five. They married at sixteen, earlier than expected. Everyone’s future changed upon learning the name H Chí Minh.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“I step back,
hating pity,

having learned
from Mother that
the pity giver
feels better,
never the pity receiver.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“People share when they know they have escaped hunger. Shouldn’t people share because there is hunger?”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“I wish
our cowboy could be persuaded
to buy a horse,

that I could be invisible
until I can talk back”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again



“I need the lessons.
I’m hiding in class
by staring at my shoes.
I’m hiding during lunch
in the bathroom,
eating hard rolls
saved from dinner.
I’m hiding during outside time
in the same bathroom.
I’m hiding after school
until Brother Khôi
rides up to
our secret corner.
With Vu Lee
I squat in
weight on legs,
back straight
arms at my sides,
fingers relaxed,
eyes everywhere at once

I’m practicing to be seen.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“MiSSS SScott
points to the numbers
along the wall.
I count up to twenty.
The class claps
on its own.
I’m furious,
unable to explain
I already learned
fractions and how to purify water.
So this is what dumb feels like. I hate, hate,
hate it.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“Oh, my daughter, at times you have to fight, but preferably not with your fists.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“I can't make my brothers
go live elsehwere,
but I can
hide their sandals.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again


“Some verbs
switch all over
just because.

I am
She is
They are
He was
They were


Would be simpler
if English
and live
were logical.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again



About the author

Thanhha Lai
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“His mother and father were agnostics, and Jim respected devout Christians in the same way that he respected people who were members of the Graf Zeppelin Club or shopped at the Chinese department stores, for their mastery of an exotic foreign ritual. Besides, those who worked hardest for others, like Mrs. Philips and Mrs. Gilmour and Dr. Ransome, often held beliefs that turned out to be correct.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Empire of the Sun


“For Schwartz this formed the paradox at the heart of baseball, or football, or any other sport. You loved it because you considered it an art: an apparently pointless affair, undertaken by people with special aptitude, which sidestepped attempts to paraphrase its value yet somehow seemed to communicate something true or even crucial about The Human Condition. The Human Condition being, basically, that we're alive and have access to beauty, can even erratically create it, but will someday be dead and will not.

Baseball was an art, but to excel at it you had to become a machine. It didn't matter how beautifully you performed SOMETIMES, what you did on your best day, how many spectacular plays you made. You weren't a painter or a writer--you didn't work in private and discard your mistakes, and it wasn't just your masterpieces that counted.”
― Chad Harbach, quote from The Art of Fielding


“He summoned you into the circle, Scott. For whatever reason, I don't know. But now you've left, you've become a loose thread. He won't sit back with the possibility you might cause his whole world to unravel around him.”
― quote from The Elephant Tree


“I hesitated. You can’t hesitate with a man like Jake.”
― Samantha Towle, quote from The Mighty Storm


“McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for.

Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?”
― Hunter S. Thompson, quote from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72


Interesting books

The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey
(24.7K)
The Motorcycle Diari...
by Ernesto Che Guevara
History of the Peloponnesian War
(25.2K)
History of the Pelop...
by Thucydides
The Queen's Fool
(80.2K)
The Queen's Fool
by Philippa Gregory
City of Golden Shadow
(21.9K)
City of Golden Shado...
by Tad Williams
The Histories
(33.8K)
The Histories
by Herodotus
Rot & Ruin
(29.6K)
Rot & Ruin
by Jonathan Maberry

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.