If we make it to shore, he says, I will name our son after this water. I will learn to love a monster."
-- The Father (Immigrant Haibun paragraph 1)

Importance: This quote sets the basis for the father's relationship with the son. His son was born out of a time of hardship for the father, but he uses him as a way to try and love what he went through. This line also connects the speaker to Ocean Vuong, as it implies that the speaker's name is Ocean.

I didn't know the cost/ of entering a song -- was to lose/ your way back.
-- The Speaker (Threshold paragraph 10)

Importance: In this line, the speaker introduces the reader to his fraught relationship with his father. As he listens to his father's song, he becomes entranced by this hidden, vulnerable side of his father. When his father realizes his son has been listening to him sing, the son must take on an unnamed cost...