Lesser Than a Lester

“What if art was not measured by quantity but ricochets? What if art was not measured?”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Texas law, while prohibiting the murder of human beings, defined a human only as White, African American, or Mexican. The nameless yellow body was not considered human because it did not fit in a slot on a piece of paper.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“What if my sadness is actually my most brutal teacher? And the lesson is always this: You don’t have to be like the buffaloes. You can stop.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“What do you call the animal that, finding the hunter, offers itself to be eaten? A martyr? A weakling? No, a beast gaining the rare agency to stop. Yes, the period in the sentence—it’s what makes us human, Ma, I swear. It lets us stop in order to keep going.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous