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Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me and Other Stories QUOTES

Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me and Other Stories QUOTES

1 " Soon I find myself squatting on the floor. I am still striking my face; not with my fists this time, but with wide-open hands. I am slapping myself. The sounds I make when my palms meet my cheeks are like an unrelenting round of applause. I am clapping myself. Or clapping for myself. I start to giggle.

All the voices are receding now. I am no longer filled with rage or disappointment. I clap and clap and simply cannot stop. "

― Cyril Wong , Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me and Other Stories

2 " I dig in; but not before catching my squatting figure in the mirror, that gleaming mirage; so like my father from this distance I stop chewing, analysing hardened cheekbones and vacant eyes; a son long abandoned by his father (forced to move out, as a young adult, on account of his sexuality) now his father's diminutive likeness; an ironic narrative about genetics and its unfunny punch line, since I offer no spring of my own to further the tale; no passing on of love's disavowal either; how cool the noodles taste in my mouth, unmemorable yet oddly reassuring... "

― Cyril Wong , Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me and Other Stories

3 " ...I dig in; but not before catching my squatting figure in the mirror, that gleaming mirage; so like my father from this distance I stop chewing, analysing hardened cheekbones and vacant eyes; a son long abandoned by his father (forced to move out, as a young adult, on account of his sexuality) now his father's diminutive likeness; an ironic narrative about genetics and its unfunny punch line, since I offer no offspring of my own to further the tale; no passing on of love's disavowal either; how cool the noodles taste in my mouth, unmemorable yet oddly reassuring... "

― Cyril Wong , Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me and Other Stories

4 " There was no love that I could see or feel between the men and the women; only boredom. Yet, paradoxically, I could also tell that this was what everyone wanted: a family structure they could be unhappy in; at least it formed the basis of a stable home, a baseline to a life that would otherwise not be tethered to anything. "

― Cyril Wong , Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me and Other Stories