The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father
Kao Kalia Yang
Top 10 Best Quotes
“On the planes, we leaned our heads back against the tall headrests, closed our eyes to what we had known, and imagined futures for our children - not for ourselves, because we knew that we were too old to start anew and filled with too much sorrow, too many regrets.”
“I've not heard the world the way you do for a long time now.”
“Your trust in me then and now scares and reassures me.”
“Song said, 'Bee, there is no wrong time for love to flourish. Perhaps now, when so many men and women have learned to hate and fear, is the most perfect time of all, fo reach of us to be reminded of a lesson in love.”
“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.”
“On November 26, 2003, nine months after my mother died, you gave birth to Max, a little boy with an American name, a little boy I didn’t think we could handle and had said maybe we should consider not having, a little boy who looked up at me with almond eyes, who smiled my smile. Max was a surprise. Nearly nine years after our youngest daughter had been born, long after we said we were done having children, long after I had tried my hand at being a father to a son and was beginning to feel I had failed, out of the blue, cloudless sky a little boy traveled into our life on the wings of my mother’s death. In 2003, I realized I had never written you a love song.”
“My father did not live to see his son yearn for a father, or struggle to become one.”
“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.”
“In America, my voice is only powerful within our home. The moment i exit our front door and enter the paved streets, my deep voice loses its volume and its strength. When I speak English, I become like a leaf in the wind”
“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?”
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Book Keywords:
family, trauma, love, traumatic-experiences, hmong, immigration, family-conflict, growing-up, refugees, loss, life, memoir, refugess, poetry, refugee, hardships
