Ocean Vuong Quotes

#1. Writing is a holy occupation.

Lailah Gifty Akita

#2. I didn't know the cost
of entering a song - was to lose
your way back.

Ocean Vuong

#3. I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.

Barack Obama

#4. When they ask you where you're from, tell them your name was fleshed from the toothless mouth of a war-woman. That you were not born but crawled, headfirst - into the hunger of dogs. My son, tell them the body is a blade that sharpens by cutting.

Ocean Vuong

#5. What opened up the American West was the fact that you owned the real estate. You owned the gold mines, the oil wells. The creation of these, back then, million dollar industries drove the railroads and eventually the airlines to provide this kind of transportation.

Peter Diamandis

#6. Imagine! In each of us lies the potential to do superhuman things. Feats of great physical daring, art, science. The ability to defy laws of nature.

Peter Lerangis

#7. Don't we touch each other just to prove we are still here? I was still here once. The

Ocean Vuong

#8. Language excites me. Irrational thought excites me. I spend most of my time listening instead of writing. A shard of language might come: a phrase, a word, an anagram, and I'd just keep it in my pocket, like a little seed, warming in my fist.

Ocean Vuong

#9. OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer ...

Ambrose Bierce

#10. She was a beautiful woman, if not a happy one, and attracting a man was never a problem. Keeping one, however, was a different matter.

Lisa Kleypas

#11. The reason I love Luis Palau is because this is a guy who is completely all about evangelism and reaching people and the lost with the gospel.

Stephen Baldwin

#12. It's easy to judge, to think we know for certain the right thing to do. Sometimes, it just isn't so clear.

Jessica Lange

#13. Your father is only your father
until one of you forgets. Like how the spine
won't remember its wings
no matter how many times our knees
kiss the pavement. Ocean,
are you listening? The most beautiful part
of your body is wherever
your mother's shadow falls.

Ocean Vuong

#14. Dear God, if you are a season, let it be the one I passed through
to get here.

Here. That's all I wanted to be.

I promise.

Ocean Vuong

#15. what becomes of the shepherd / when the sheep are cannibals?

Ocean Vuong

#16. We had many books and pictures ... my parents' way of life doubtless left a lasting impression on me. They created an atmosphere in which a certain kind of freedom could exist. This may well account for my seeking a related sense of liberty as I grew up.

Alfred Stieglitz

#17. Nobody will go on being remembered for a very long time, unless you're Shakespeare or Milton. I have no hope of being remembered at all.

Ruth Rendell

#18. This land was an enigma. It was like a horse that no one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and kicks things to pieces.

Willa Cather

#19. Sometimes I ask for too much just to feel my mouth overflow.

Ocean Vuong

#20. How sweet. That rain. How something that lives only to fall can be nothing but sweet.

Ocean Vuong

#21. Jeff shook his head, the lines between his brows drawing together. Ask yourself this, Connor - what is it that's got your manties in such a twist? I mean, really ... what is it about Megan you don't want to lose?

Mira Lyn Kelly

#22. The stillness of the early morning scene enables me to take in and enjoy many things which pass me by during the bustle of the day. First, there are the scents, which seem even more generous with their offerings than they are in the evening.

Rosemary Verey

#23. Confetti
green, how I want you green.
Green despite the red despite
the rest.

Ocean Vuong

#24. Respect your body, and look forward to feeling healthy and clean. Your body deserves better than laboratory-made sweetness.

Damon Gameau

#25. Fall down 7, get up 8

Stuart C. Mowbray

#26. When our lips touched the day closed
into a coffin. In the museum of the heart...

Ocean Vuong

#27. The most beautiful part of your body
is where it's headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world.

Ocean Vuong