Quotes from Bich Minh Nguyen

I read to be alone. I read so as not to be alone.

I looked back all the time, too much, too often. Like Rose, I would be circling my mother the rest of my life.

If you want to rule your life with obligations to other people, that's you.

I doubled back to school and overheard Mrs. Andersen in the classroom talking to another teacher. "Can you believe it?" she was saying. "A foreigner winning our spelling bee!

Or like the way our mother would never get free of her first-generation immigrant mentality. Once in flight she was always in flight, glancing uneasily around before pushing on to another vista that promised better prospects. Maybe it kept her feeling safe. She couldn't have known that it would leave Sam and me feeling the opposite--permanently unsettled, unable to know what could be called home.

From this little hideaway the city felt entirely removed. That was the difference so much money could make. In a suburban rental, hiding out was the same as being forgotten; here, it was a deliberate choice and the rest of the world would just have to wait.