Monique Truong Quotes & Sayings

I am forced to admit that I am, to them, nothing but a series of destinations with no meaningful expanses in between. — Monique Truong

Words, do not have twins in every language. Sometimes they only have distant cousins, and sometimes they pretend that they are not even related. — Monique Truong

All my favorite establishments were either overly crowded or pathetically empty. People either sipped fine vintages in celebration or gulped intoxicants of who cares what kind, drowning themselves in a lack of moderation, raising a glass to lower inhibitions, imbibing spirits to raise their own. — Monique Truong

Quinces are ripe...when they are the yellow of canary wings in midflight. they are ripe when their scent teases you with the snap of green apples and the perfumed embrace of coral roses. but even then quinces remain a fruit, hard and obstinate--useless...until they are simmered, coddled for hours above a low, steady flame. add honey and water and watch their dry, bone-colored flesh soak-up the heat, coating itself in an opulent orange, not of the sunrises that you never see but of the insides of tree-ripened papayas, a color you can taste. to answer your questionlove is not a bowl of quinces yellowing in a blue and white china bowl, seen but untouched. ~The Book of Salt — Monique Truong

Although we strap time to our wrists, stuff it into our pockets, hang it on our walls, a perpetually moving picture for every room of the house, it can still run away, elude and evade, and show itself again only when there are minutes remaining and there is nothing left to do except wait till there are none. — Monique Truong

I was certain t find the familiar sting of salt, but what I needed to know was what kind: kitchen, sweat, tears or the sea. — Monique Truong

In language at once stark and delicate, Suki Kim shatters the polemic of North and South Korea. She couples an investigative reporter's fierce desire to strip away the fiction of the Hermit Kingdom with an immigrant's insatiable hunger for an emotional home, no matter how troubled and no matter how impossible. — Monique Truong

Alcohol, I had learned, was an eloquent if somewhat inaccurate interpreter. I had placed my trust that December night in glass after glass of it, eager not for drink but for a bit of talk. — Monique Truong

As a father, he was generous. More or less. The "less" was because he never gave me what I wanted. He gave me only what he wanted me to have. I found this was often true with philanthropy and with love. The giver's desire and fulfillment played an important role. — Monique Truong

The irony of acquiring a foreign tongue is that I have amassed just enough cheap, serviceable words to fuel my desires and never, never enough lavish, impudent ones to feed them. — Monique Truong

WE all need a story of where we came from and how we got here. — Monique Truong