Thanhha Lai Quotes

No, Mr. Johnston doesn't have a horse, nor has he ever ridden one. What kind of a cowboy is he?

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.

No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama.-Inside Out and Back Again

Would be simpler
if English
and life
were logical

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.

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?

My curse: rebellious in my head but oh-so-lovely in real life.

Whoever invented English
should have learned
to spell.

I can't make my brothers
go live elsehwere,
but I can
hide their sandals.

I'm practicing
to be seen.

I hate being told I can't do something because I'm a girl!

Our lives
will twist and twist,
intermingling the old and the new
until it doesn't matter
which is which.

We glide and I feel as if I'm floating.

Life is easy and hard, beautiful and ugly.

Black seeds spill like clusters of eyes, wet and crying.

Oh, my daughter,
at times you have to fight,
but preferably
not with your fists.

I step back,
hating pity,
having learned
from Mother that
the pity giver
feels better,
never the pity receiver.