Best Of Thao Thai's "Banyan Moon"

 Here is a selection of memorable quotes from Banyan Moon by Thao Thai.

This veiled wonderland, where nothing is what it seems and everyone is just atrociously polite. I feel that I will never be able to grasp the undercurrents beneath those pretty words. Not for the first time, I miss my grandmother's frankness; even my mother's curtness, which I understood—or at least felt prepared for. 

p. 23

She scurries off, this daughter of mine, her hair bouncing as she moves, so quick and capable. Serving at others' pleasure. I have wanted so many things for her, but I'm no witch. She has to claim them for herself. Perhaps Ann is the only one of us to seize her own fate, to lead with will, rather than by another man's promise.

p. 30

He loved her more than a person should love another. There was something reckless about it.

p. 34

What's left of me, after he has taken it all?

p. 41

He looks so helpless that I have to fight the urge to comfort him. I realize that Noah has been my child for a long time, the gorgeous professor who needs me so very much, to make homemade bread and attend faculty parties and placate his parents. I am a helpmeet. But what does he offer me? There's the charm and flattery and a host of generous gestures. He is kind. He is also weak. There's no incongruency in these observations, but they gut me all the same. He's polish without sub-stance, and I've hitched my wagon to nothing but a handful of glitter. The loss of Bà Ngoại reminds me about what love can feel like: crude yet formidable. Strong.

p. 49

Grief is a lake of perilously thin ice. You never know when you'll fall through it, or when you will fight your way back to the surface.

p. 50

It hurts that my mother knows things about Bà Ngoại that I don't, though of course, that is the curse of leaving. You withdraw the privilege of access to the quiet, everyday details. The relationship loses its texture.

p. 53

I always thought there was something disastrously hopeful about men going to fight. They immolate themselves with principle, as if they have a choice but to fight. The stories they tell themselves of bygone gallantry; a chance to reclaim the honour that muted itself in times of peace.

p. 83

She was never like that with me; rather, she gave me the truths she thought I needed to hear, even before I was ready. How love's shape changes with its recipient.

p. 125

Discontent is our family's curse. It is also, perhaps, the thing that let us survive in unfamiliar places.

p. 125

I think there's something so heartbreakingly beautiful about boys—their softness, their vulnerability, before the world tells them that they must be something else. What could the men who hurt us have been, had they been loved enough?

p. 130

In my old life, I was a well-groomed house cat. But I want to be something feral and self-sufficient, like those panthers in the Everglades with their silky bodies, jumping from branch to branch.

p. 138

Love was one thing. But trust was the sterling key, the only thing that could have opened the doors to my heart. And it eluded me for the rest of my life.

p. 152

There are dangers we risk for ourselves, but never for our loved ones.

p. 153

Shame and entitlement can tangle together until they're impossible to pull apart. 

p.181

All I think about these days are legacies, but there is something to be said for finding something that's all your own, like a secret power never meant to be shared.

p. 251

And to me, there is freedom in imperfection. To know and love another's flaws—now, I know that to be a gift.

p. 257

When we choose to chisel pieces of our heart away to offer to another person, we must always make decisions. What flaws will we lift to the light? And which will we bury, in the hopes of protecting ourselves and others?

p. 256

We all make mistakes. I say this not as a way to absolve, but as a way to connect myself to the generations of women who came before, and those that will follow. But I won't seek forgiveness.

p. 257-258

Sometimes, I think that's a blessing to love without expectation, though "love" is not exactly the right word to describe what is between Wes and me. "Saudade," perhaps, a Portuguese word for longing. Homesickness.

p. 261

But I've never been of sound mind. I come from a tribe of women who are ravaged and joyous, loud, raging, tied to our own convoluted histories.

p. 316