"The prime unifying motivation for revolution in Vietnam was the goal of throwing off foreign subjugation. For hundreds of years the Vietnamese fought against a multitude of enemies, taking on and often defeating Chinese armies, the forces of Kubla Khan, and numerous other foes before the twentieth century. Vietnamese nationalism, although temporarily checked by the modern weaponry of Western nations, experienced a rapid resurgence in the 1920s and, heightened further by colonial repression, contributed greatly to the development of the revolution."

"We lost, everyday, Vietnamese life, in fighting the communists... American democracy, maybe, cannot work in a country like mine, you know, in South Vietnam."

"I remember that day clearly when I left Saigon. I left my country in honor that day... China presents Vietnam with a very big problem. China is taking over Vietnam, from Cholon, where there are rich Chinese, to Haiphong. They are everywhere now with their product. My wife is from the North, people there resent China more than the South feared the Viet Cong. The Chinese are invaders — like any other foreigners — to fight. We must stop the Chinese. You know the dikes built on the Red River? If they break, what happens? A flood!"

"If they want to assassinate me, it's easy. After that, just blame it on the Việt Cộng or a coup d'etat plot."

"They have back-stabbed us."

"No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now. Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much. Never have the consequences of their misunderstanding been so tragic."

"With a Vietnamese baby on your mind."

"I also come here with a deep respect for Vietnam's ancient heritage. For millennia, farmers have tended these lands, a history revealed in the Đông Sơn drums. At this bend in the river, Hanoi has endured for more than a thousand years. The world came to treasure Vietnamese silks and paintings, and a great Temple of Literature stands as a testament to your pursuit of knowledge. And yet, over the centuries, your fate was too often dictated by others. Your beloved land was not always your own. But like bamboo, the unbroken spirit of the Vietnamese people was captured by Lý Thường Kiệt: "The Southern emperor rules the Southern land. Our destiny is writ in Heaven's Book.""

"I don’t want freedom for just myself; that’s too easy. I want something greater: freedom for Vietnam. It might seem like some grand goal, but it’s totally possible – with your support."

"I used to see Vietnam as a war rather than a country."

"The decay of the Soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies -- West Germany and East Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and Vietnam -- it is the democratic countries what are prosperous and responsive to the needs of their people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: Of all the millions of refugees we've seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward the Communist world. Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving."

"Vietnam was a single country again. Ho had organised the communist order on political and economic principles which drew on the Soviet and Chinese experiences. Agriculture was collectivised. A network of labour camps was spread across the country and hostile ‘class’ elements were rounded up and forced to abandon their capitalistic sympathies. A strict one-party dictatorship was imposed. A blend of patriotism and Marxism-Leninism was propagated. The party and the army were reinforced as the combined bastion of the regime. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam had been born in a colonial war and had known nothing but war since obtaining its independence. It was an even more militarised society than the People’s Republic of China. Yet its industry made hardly any armaments. It had little industry at all and the Americans bombed its few factories into rubble. Financial support and military supplies from the USSR and China had been crucial for survival. The northerners communised the south after the American withdrawal. Expropriations and arrests accompanied the expansion of the party and army presence across the newly occupied provinces. Within a year or two the southern economy had been pressed into a northern mould. Yet the wartime devastation was everywhere. Vietnam was a land of orphans, invalids, ruined houses, disrupted rice paddies and poisoned forests. Hanoi expressed the wish for a rapprochement, but the departed Americans cut the Vietnamese off from the world economy. Peace was meant to turn the country into a desert. Although the USSR continued to proffer aid, it was never on a scale adequate for substantial reconstruction."

"However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear?"

"Whatever you think... America wasn't stealing from the Vietnamese."

"This is the largest anti-Chinese demonstration I have ever seen in Hanoi. Our patience has limits. We are here to express the will of the Vietnamese people to defend our territory at all costs. We are ready to die to protect our nation."

"All independent religions are banned [in Vietnam]. Only economically speaking we are better [since the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975]. But politically speaking nothing changes."

"[T]he Vietnamese government does not mess around. Vietnam is not a democracy. It benefits (suffers?) from extensive monitoring of civilians, but unlike the Singaporean techno-state, Vietnam’s system is more akin to an authoritarian neighborhood watch. This system of internal monitoring literally lets state agents go door-to-door demanding answers to invasive questions."

"In this struggle we are inspired by the example of those countries where staunch supporters of the socialist option are in power. They are China which has the world in awe of its spectacular successes in the economy and the social sphere. Cuba, which the US imperialism has vainly tried to strangle for six decades. The dynamically developing Vietnam. These countries challenge capitalist globalization, refuse to submit to their diktat and score successes on the socialist path. The experience of fraternal Byelorussia is highly instructive."

"Strap on my arm; the streets is feeling like Vietnam."