Boat Baby Quotes

“Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“family in Vietnam was a patriarchal system. Asian cultures expect honor and duty to your elders. It was how my parents were raised. Kids didn’t converse with their parents, they didn’t confide in them, and they certainly didn’t debate them. I was expected to figure everything out on my own, from drinking and drugs to dating and sex. My parents didn’t think there was that much to figure out anyway. The answer to all of that was “Don’t do it, ever.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“You don’t get to take this life for granted. You have to make the most of it.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“Trời đất ơi, tới rồi, tới rồi.” “Oh my God, we made it, we made it!”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“The old adage “Tháng ba bà già đi biển” applied to us: In March, the ocean is so calm even an old lady can cross.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“There is no future if there is no freedom,”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“schoolchildren were instructed to report their parents to the police if they overheard them speaking against the government. She saw neighborhood families torn apart when indoctrinated sixth graders turned on their mothers and fathers.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“Cây cột đèn nếu biêt đi nước ngoài. If the lamppost knew how to walk, it would leave this country too.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“Sài Gòn fell on April 30, 1975. Just like that, the war with the North was over. Hồ Chí Minh succeeded in bringing all of Vietnam under his control.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“It’s not good to be scared. If anything’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. It’s up to fate.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“Có quả đạn nào với tên mình đã khắc trên vỏ đạn?” “I wonder if any of the rockets have our names already carved into them?”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“Việt Cộng—the guerrilla soldiers supporting the North—”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“Years later, in America, my dad raised me the same way, scolding me for being careless anytime I cried from falling down or getting scraped up. This is a tradition handed down from generation to generation by Vietnamese parents. Berating the survivor for getting hurt in the first place is our language of love.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“bánh rán, a round sesame ball pastry with sweet mung bean paste inside.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“Sài Gòn—which became the capital of the new Republic of Vietnam, or South Vietnam.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“Hà Nội was the capital city of the new Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“He was like a broken record yucking my yum.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir

“Creating a healthy baby is a miracle. Cells must divide correctly, chromosomes have to line up just right, all the alchemy has to happen in a certain amount of time, in the proper order. Each person who has walked on this earth is truly astonishing.”
― Vicky Nguyen, Boat Baby: A Memoir