But I wasn't trying to make a sentence—I was trying to break free. “All this time I told myself we were born from war—but I was wrong, Ma. I looked at you hard, the way I had learned, by then, to look into the eyes of my bullies. Rose bush, rain, butterfly, snapping turtle, firing squad, childhood, death, mother tongue, me, you. I touch the world not as myself but as an echo of who I was. I’m sorry I keep saying How are you? Perhaps to lay hands on your child is to prepare him for war. Poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. Be the first to learn about new releases! How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. From the creators of SparkNotes. You're a killer. “In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ. When does a war end? A name, thin as air, can also be a shield. It’s the chemicals in our brains, they say. You killed that poem, we say. Critic, Book World. Sometimes, when I’m careless, I believe the wound is also the place where the skin reencounters itself, asking of each end, where have you been? Follow. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.”, “Because the sunset, like survival, exists only on the verge of its own disappearing. How something that lives only to fall can be nothing but sweet.”, “I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. A trope in a movie you can walk away from if it weren’t already here, already written down. And so I ran out the door, down the black summer streets. Every history has more than one thread, each thread a story of division. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Có nhớ mẹ không? How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly.”, “Is that what art is? Find the quotes you need in Ocean Vuong's On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, sortable by theme, character, or part. You once told me that the human eye is god’s loneliest creation. “That’s my mom. “I was bor… Madness can sometimes lead to discovery, that the mind, fractured and short-wired, is not entirely wrong. What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. Sometimes, when I’m careless, I think survival is easy: you just keep moving forward with what you have, or what’s left of what you were given, until something changes—or you realize, at last, that you can change without disappearing, that all you had to do was wait until the storm passes you over and you find that—yes—your name is still attached to a living thing. We tend to these basic functions not because we are brave or selfless but because, like breath, it is the most fundamental act of our species: to sustain the body until time leaves it behind.”. This is an old story, one anyone can tell. Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey. They say addiction might be linked to bipolar disorder. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, 'it's been an honor to serve my country.”, “How sweet. My local book club met last weekend, to discuss On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. Maybe we look into mirrors not merely to seek beauty, regardless how illusive, but to make sure, despite the facts, that we are still here. That the hunted body we move in has not yet been annihilated, scraped out. Under the covers, we made friction of each other and fiction of everything else. I owned that workshop. And despite me not really liking the content of the book, I have to admit that some of the quotes in the novel really got to me. Ocean Vuong quotes Showing 1-30 of 419 “They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it.” ― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous 312 likes In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly. Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. I looked at that dog, its ribs showing, dancing to French music and thought anything could happen. Your email address will not be published. When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind? This detailed literature summary also contains Quotes and a Free Quiz on On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. In which case the hand, although limited by the borders of skin and cartilage, can be that third language that animates where the tongue falters. I feel good how about you? It was written so beautifully and so poetically that one cannot help but to be pulled into the story. Female monarchs lay eggs along the route. Up. Ocean Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ is permanently stunning. We make more of anything we find aesthetically pleasing, whether it’s a vase, a painting, a chalice, a poem. I ran until I forgot I was ten, until my heartbeat was all I could hear of myself. Which is why I have taken god’s loneliest creation and put you inside it. The monarchs that fly south will not make it back north. We feed it, keep it comfortable, bathe it, medicate it, caress it, even sing to it. I shut it down. The journey takes four thousand eight hundred and thirty miles, more than the length of this country. “In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly.”, “A page, turning, is a wing lifted with no twin, and therefore no flight. And maybe all names are illusions. The blood racing to the heart only to be sent back out, filling the routes, the once empty channels, the miles it takes to take us toward each other. What if the body, at its best, is only a longing for body? Read 18 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. But you know this already.”, “Migration can be triggered by the angle of sunlight, indicating a change in the season, temperature, plant life, and food supply. “Have you ever made a scene, and then put yourself inside it? Merry Christmas Happy New Year.”. It felt good to name what was already happening to me all my life. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly.”, “Is that what art is? Enjoy. A woman who watches out for her own, that’s who. I got the wrong chemicals, Ma. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough”, “I am writing you from inside a body that used to be yours. They have an industry. It’s been a while since I’ve read On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. While the storyline wasn’t exactly something that I could get into, I still admired how Ocean Vuong wrote his book. Even when the man stopped, walked over to the dog wagging its tail, and placed the treat in the dog’s open mouth, proving again that it was hunger, only hunger, not music that gave the dog its human skill, I still believed it. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Or rather, the drains of heaven – waiting. I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me? To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.”, “Too much joy, I swear, is lost in our desperation to keep it.”, “I am writing because they told me to never start a sentence with because. To be touched thinking what we feel is ours when, in the end, it was someone else, in longing, who finds us?”, “& remember, / loneliness is still time spent / with the world.”, “Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places.”, “We try to preserve life, even when we know it has no chance of enduring its body. From the creators of SparkNotes. But if you were god, you'd know it's a flood.”, “The truth is we can survive our lives, but not our skin. I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. They will write their names on your leash and call you necessary, call you urgent. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. I am hammering this paragraph, I am banging them out, we say. I'm wrestling with the muse. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Có nhớ mẹ không? How often do we name something after its briefest form? I looked at you hard, the way I had learned, by then, to look into the eyes of my bullies. I drove my face into him as if into a climate, the autobiography of a season. What do we mean when we say survivor? Female monarchs lay eggs along the route. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink of an eye, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you’re born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly. I came out her asshole and I love her very much. They worked well for our discussion, so I’d love for your club to use them too! Like Little Dog in On Earth we’re Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong’s maternal grandfather was a white American naval officer stationed in Vietnam during the war.Vuong’s grandparents were married and had three children. Enjoy. Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.”, “Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined.”, “Did you know people get rich off of sadness? You came into that novel guns blazing. I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. You once told me that memory is a choice. We tend to these basic functions not because we are brave or selfless but because, like breath, it is the most fundamental act of our species: to sustain the body until time leaves it behind.”.

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