For your own security it’s imperative you blend in with the native population.

I’m clinging to one last thought: pain is the harbinger of hope. You have to be alive to feel pain. If you are alive, then you have purpose. If you have purpose, then you have hope.

In total this journey will take five flights and fifty-five hours, but in reality it began four decades and two generations ago when my uncle died in Vietnam.

I felt so much pride, so much love. You get a handful of days like this in a lifetime. Take in every minute. They’ll be over soon enough, and you never know what tomorrow will bring.

A son for a flag is a lot of sacrifice.

The meeting began well, meaning it had the potential for being short.

I felt like I should salute. If only I knew how.

Military life is hard, even cruel—especially for the kids.

We all lose people. We all have to live in the aftermath. It’s how we move forward that counts, but sometimes we are tethered to something in our past that won’t let us move forward.

This is who I was, before I was dead. When I cared, when I was relentless.

We could never go back to how things were on the day before 9/11, but maybe I could go back to who I was.

I had a polynomial once. My doctor removed it.

Pak Karman hugged his wife’s gravestone tightly. “You left without saying farewell!” The whole of the graveyard was ablaze with light.

Our people must be taught to desist from accepting bribes. The ability to say NO, must become a core value of our nation

Revolution must take place within one's own mind.

Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning.

Wish for what you want, work for what you need. -Carmen's grandmother

A vacation from school should not mean hunger for our children.

Because celebrities' lives are so visible, I think it makes it look lighter than it is.

The movies are funny, in one way, because you think of everyone being as beautiful as the dawn, but that isn't true.

Young people who learn the arts do better in every phase of their lives.