Lisa Nguyen

“A book must start somewhere. One brave letter must volunteer to go first, laying itself on the line in an act of faith, from which a word takes heart and follows, drawing a sentence into its wake. From there, a paragraph amasses, and soon a page, and the book is on its way, finding a voice, calling itself into being.”
― Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness

“White women’s tears are fundamental to the success of whiteness. Their distress is a weapon that prevents people of color from being able to assert themselves or to effectively challenge white racism and alter the fundamental inequalities built into the system.”
― Ruby Hamad, White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

“What does it mean for the rest of us that white women can quietly control almost all of the weapons belonging to the world’s most powerful country and still claim to be oppressed in the same way as other women?”
― Ruby Hamad, White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

“And then, when she’s finished and the book ventures out into the world, the readers take their turn, and here another kind of comingling occurs. Because the reader is not a passive receptacle for a book’s contents. Not at all. You are our collaborators, our conspirators, breathing new life into us. And because every reader is unique, each of you makes each of us mean differently, regardless of what’s written on our pages. Thus, one book, when read by different readers, becomes different books, becomes an ever-changing array of books that flows through human consciousness like a wave.”
― Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness