“At night in our town, it’s music everywhere. Rich house. Poor house. Doesn’t matter. Everyone has music.”

The novel’s opening line shows the importance of music in Arn’s life and foreshadows the role music will play in different stages throughout Arn’s journey.

“Outside in the park, we fly the plane, shoot the gun, be the hero. Just like the real soldier fighting right now in the jungle outside of our town. We shoot probably a hundred bullet, die a hundred time.”

This quotation about Arn and his little brother reenacting movie battles contrasts the romanticism and reality of war. At first, Arn sees war as glamorous and heroic, like in American movies. Soon, though, he learns what it feels like actually to shoot and kill another human being.

“All of Cambodia is on the road. A hundred thousand people with a hundred thousand thing.”

Arn uses hyperbole to describe the forced exodus from his town, which mirrors the forced removal of families from cities all over Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. The quotation is important because it gives a sense of the magnitude of the historical moment.