Kien Nguyen · 343 pages
Rating: (1.8K votes)
“Don't let this anger ruin your life any more than it already has. If you want to every achieve happiness, don't dwell on the past. Instead, start living. What is the point of obsessing that has already happened, and that you cannot change? Live! And be merry.”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“Hit me again, and I'll report you to the authorities. Follow me to my bed one more time, and I swear to the gods, I'll search for the most painful way to murder you.”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“I can't go to America. I don't want to go to any foreign land where I don't speak the language or know the customs. I'd rather die here by the Vietcong's hands, among my ancestors, than live like a ghost among strangers. You go!”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“In all of my years doing this job, I have never given the drug to anyone over three months pregnant; not once, because everybody listens to me, except you.”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“No longer did she look like a shy little maid who was trained to censor her thought before it reached her mouth. These past few days had turned her into a reserved yet intelligent young woman.”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“Lying half-asleep in his embrace, I looked up and saw on his face the same expression I saw on countless lonely faces every day. It was the homesick look of the children who were lost in the chaos of warfare, witnessing death and disaster, longing for a meaningful touch.”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“Come up here. Tell us your story.”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“Take a close look at your life if you dare. Do you understand why you allow your children to harass mine? Jealousy, that's why. You are jealous of the fact that all of your fourteen children could never measure up in Daddy's eyes as much as one half-breed of mine. It hurts, doesn't it? Knowing that your children can never be good enough. But how could they? Just look at them, and the parents that gave life to them. I sincerely hope that I never have to see your face again.”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“In the sallow afternoon, I watched her get dressed.”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“Never had I beheld such despair.”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“I don't have anything to give you, except to show you a way to better yourself.”
― Kien Nguyen, quote from The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood
“The Countess picked up the doll that Annie had dropped and smoothed its patchy hair. “So, the word has already been sent to your men. They’ll find me what I’m looking for, or beginning this Sunday—I do hate Sundays, they’re so dull—beginning this Sunday, your town will lose a child each week I have to wait.” With”
― John Stephens, quote from The Emerald Atlas
“If someone else doesn't like your confidence, that's their problem.
Why? You always come before they do, that's why.”
― Sherry Argov, quote from Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship
“Cand iubirea a disparut, viata devine oarecum conventionala si silnica; pastrezi o forma umana, comportamentele obisnuite, un soi de structura, dar sufletul, cum se spune, e gol.”
― Michel Houellebecq, quote from Platform
“Whatcha doin', Freak Girl?"
---------------------------
"What does it look like, brainiac?" I shot back, even surprising myself with the force of my jab. "I'll give you three guesses. No, wait. Don't strain yourself. Wouldn't want to hurt your head." I waved a flyer in his face, channeling my inner mean girl. "See these? I'm hanging them...on a...wall!" I spoke the last part slowly, as if addressing a dim-witted child. Which wasn't far off the mark, now that I thought about it. "With tape," I added, waving at the dispenser. "You know-sticky, sticky!”
― Mari Mancusi, quote from Gamer Girl
“But Ruth was wrong, too. There was more than just one other world beyond ours; there were hundreds and hundreds of them, and at 99 cents apiece I could rent them all.”
― Emily M. Danforth, quote from The Miseducation of Cameron Post
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