Quotes

Throughout the novel, many lessons were taught to Mai by her mother: "you have to stand up to the Americans if you want anything in this country (p. 23). Although Mai and her family left Vietnam, her country "had a special pull" for her. "It was where her mother was born" (p. 102). After death and hardship, Mai finishes the novel with a great quote: "Outside, a faint sliver of what only two weeks ago was a full moon dangled like a sea horse from the sky" (p. 260).