Best 9 quotes of Kao Kalia Yang on MyQuotes

Emotions are captive to reality

Love is the reason why my mother and father stick together in a hard life when they might each have an easier one apart; love is the reason why you choose a life with someone, and you don't turn back although your heart cries sometimes and your children see you cry and you wish out loud that things were easier. Love is getting up each day and fighting the same fight only to sleep that night in the same bed beside the same person because long ago, when you were younger and you did not see so clearly, you had chosen them.

I am sorry, dear heart, that I have more sorrows than joy. I am sorry I made you scale mountains, heedless of your soft skin. I am sorry I made you jump into rushing water, heedless of your inability to swim. I am sorry, dear heart, that you must bear the scars. Dear heart, that you remember . . . The day my older brother told me to run. In my flight away from home, I heard the shotguns blast. In my dreams, people found my brother, and they took him to the hospital in Sam Neua. In my dreams, the wild dogs entered our house, and feasted on my brother's fallen body. I am sorry, dear heart, that I wish to begin again, My tender, my wounded heart, Begin again before the mountains and the water, before the sorrows, when I knew joy at my brother's side.

I want you to be better than me. Xue looked at our father. Xue said, What if you are the best man I know how to be?

My children wanted me to be brave. They did not understand that I have been running from the nightmare of what happened in Laos since I left. Or that there were things waiting for me in Thailand, little boys and lost dogs, that I knew I could never return to. They did not understand that the bravery they asked of me I never had in Laos or Thailand, and I could not have it on returning to those countries.

My father did not live to see his son yearn for a father, or struggle to become one.

Our baby was laid on the cool metal, on his side, six inches long, eyes closed, mouth open slightly, thin arms and legs, little red fingers and toes. You looked without blinking. I wanted to put my hands over your eyes, to block what you were seeing, to stop the gasps that you expelled.

Patience is the slow road to success

Your trust in me then and now scares and reassures me.