Ocean Vuong

To get a job, if you get too much money, you're going to lose your housing.

So what are you going to do?

Sell weed on the side, get cash, put it on the mattress.

Mom pays the light bill with her checks.

You take her to the grocery store.

And I have seen folks do that.

And I don't condone drug dealing.

I've seen folks do that and move out and move on and stop that and have relatively economically successful lives.

I've seen folks do that and end up in jail and die.

So it's just a complete crapshoot, you know, and...

So I went into the farm as a way to help my mother.

But I had this myth that I would go out and be the one who has a degree.

I was going to study international marketing and really be the superhero of my family.

And then I got to the school in New York to study.

And I studied for just four weeks before I dropped out.

And all that myth,

of who I am to myself, crumbled.

And I often say this, and not in any tongue-in-cheek way.

I said, I became a writer out of failure.

And more so, I became a writer out of shame.