The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

Even if they found themselves in Heaven, our countrymen would find occasion to remark that it was not as warm as Hell.

Home is overrated, he said. Easy for him to say when his father and mother got along reasonably well,

they welcome their soldiers home, ready to treat any unmentionable afflictions with the penicillin of American goodness.

Although every country thought itself superior in its own way, was there ever a country that coined so many “super” terms from the federal bank of its narcissism,

Was it any surprise that other people thought we were happy with conditions to which we were merely resigned?

our fecund little country no longer produced significant amounts of rice, rubber, and tin, cultivating

holding up his end of the bargain as the last fig leaf of his dignity.

is always better to admire the best among our foes rather than the worst among our friends. Wouldn’t you agree, Commandant?

did not belong here, he said, You don’t belong in America, either. Perhaps, I said. But I wasn’t born there. I was born here.