F. Sionil José
The Japanese covet important symbols - their heroic past as enshrined in Yasukuni, the Imperial family which has never been sullied by scandal.
What is needed in the theater, in fact for all our art forms, is a vibrant critical tradition.
To fund major cultural efforts, we must not rely alone on government and foundation patronage; if the farmer can spend for beer, he can pay for good entertainment which he can understand, which he can identify with and which will fortify his spirit.
You perhaps know me as a novelist. Literature is one of the arts - in fact, the noblest of the arts. That is not my opinion; it was first expressed by the ancients. As art, literature has many similarities with the other art forms.
We recognize the distinctness of Asian art when we turn to its traditional forms, recognize it as Japanese, Chinese and Indian, even Balinese or Thai.
I envy those Hindus and Buddhists who have in their religion philosophy and ancestor worship which build in the believer a continuity with the past, and that most important ingredient in the building of a nation - memory.
Professional societies are sooner or later fractured by the ego of their leaders. Everyone wants to be president, chairman, CEO; no one wants to be a mere follower.
We must know our own roles. We should also know the roles that others play, and the rules such roles follow. In this manner, social harmony is maintained. It is when we overstep our roles, or act without knowing them, that social anarchy ensues.
Literature - Eastern and Western - abounds with stories, myths, legends about the search for youth, for eternal life.
Past middle age, some friends suggested that I should have my eyebags removed, the deepening creases on my face stretched. I often examined my face in the mirror, imagining how I'd look if I followed the suggestion. I decided to retain the old mug. I was too familiar and comfortable with it. And the final hindrance: the cost.
For them who delay aging, who infuse decrepit bodies with youth and beauty - they must rejoice in the fullness of their deeds.
As artists, we must not go down to the level of the masa; we should bring them up, intellectualize our languages, create classics out of our folk arts. We can do this if we are true to our roots and strive for excellence.
Class - or the economic status of individuals - is evident in all societies, some very well stratified by a rigid caste system determined by birth.
Indeed, the existence of class, of social hierarchy, is as old as man himself. It prevails in the jungle where strength determines hierarchy; among men, it has also been savagely the same, whereby rulers vested with power through personal combat, or through lineal heritage as in the case of royalty, ravage their subjects.
From antiquity, Latin died but is still studied in seminaries and elite universities. So did Sanskrit in Asia. iI was replaced by Pali, but even Pali died, too. Linguists say the only ancient language which was resuscitated from the grave was Hebrew of Israel.
Christianity doesn't demand that we worship our ancestors. If we don't remember our ancestors, then, in all likelihood, we cannot also recall the distant past.
Like so many poor Ilokanos, my grandparents left their village, for it could no longer sustain them. The Ilocos is a narrow coastal plain where, so often, the mountain drops to the sea. Land hunger had always afflicted the Ilokanos and made them migratory.
I was born in an Ilokano village called Cabugawan. Most of the houses in it were roofed with thatch, pan-aw, a species of wild grass.
I tell young people who ask me about a future in writing not to go into it unless they get married to someone rich.
I regret that I have not written more, shouted louder, and acted out my beliefs.
What most readers do not realize is that it takes a particular genius to write funny, to satirize.
Some lucky people can be funny without half trying because they actually look funny, because acting funny is in their bones - fun as funny, not funny as crude slapstick.
At 86, I can easily look back to the last eight decades. Though memory often fails me now, so many images of the past are still clearly polished, and I can yet recall not just an abiding sense of place, but the keen smells, the sensory responses to the events of that past.
Always remember: the alleviation of poverty is never a political or economic issue - it is moral.
We write from life and call it literature, and literature lives because we are in it.Collection: Life
When you love someone, that love has no limit, no measure, because you know in your deepest being that when that love demands sacrifice, you will give it without question. You will not look for reasons, for justification - the act of giving, of sacrificing, is a natural compulsion, like breathing, and it will, in the end, surprise you because you did it without second thoughts.Collection: Sacrifice
Time will come that all that we love, we will eventually lose, and all that we hate we will eventually face.Collection: Hate
No man stops caring as long as he breathes. As long as he has a mind and memory, he will care. This is what separates us from the animals. We have feelings.Collection: Memories
I write to please myself—of course, that is a given. But beyond this reach for pleasure, I know that I write for my countrymen, that they may be lifted from apathy and ignorance. I write because of a compulsion to make something out of the nothing that is my own life.Collection: Writing
You will find that our enemies are our own kin. It is they who betray us. So learn this most important lesson-in the end, our worst enemy is ourselvesCollection: Worst Enemy
We compromise ourselves the day we are born. If we are looking for the original sin, there it is- our incapacity to live honestly with ourselves because we are human, because we are shackled by custom, by obligations and we accept compromise only in the light of our conscience, answerable as we are only to ourselves.Collection: Light
We read because they teach us about people, we can see ourselves in them,in their problems.And by seeing ourselves in them, we clarify ourselves, we explain ourselves to ourselves, so we can live with ourselves.Collection: People
Just because you have so much to give does not mean that they'll all be accepted. There's more to giving than just giving.Collection: Mean
Perhaps, this is what love has always been, whether it is for a woman of for a cause -- the readiness to give and not ask for anything in return, the unquestioning willingness to lose everything, even if that loss is as something as precious as life itself.Collection: Loss
We are shallow because we are mayabang, ego driven, and do not have the humility to understand that we are only human, much too human to mistake knowledge for wisdom.Collection: Mistake
The obscenities of this country are not girls like you. It is the poverty which is obscene, and the criminal irresponsibility of the leaders who make this poverty a deadening reality. The obscenities in this country are the places of the rich, the new hotels made at the expense of the people, the hospitals where the poor die when they get sick because they don't have the money either for medicines or services. It is only in this light that the real definition of obscenity should be made.Collection: Girl
I wish I could be honest and true, but truth as I see it is not something abstract, a pious generality---It is justice at work, righteous, demanding, disciplined, sincere and unswerving; otherwise, it is not, it cannot be truth at all.Collection: Justice
Life is always sad. That's what makes suicide so tempting because life is all that we really have and haven't. Death makes us equals, too, because the foul and the good all die. The past, the present, and the future-what escape is there from these? None-and yet sometimes we are life's happy victims.Collection: Suicide
Life is holy and it is for all of us. God's design, I cannot understand myself and I never will, but I do know that what we are experiencing now will pass and in the end we will all be brothers, not just blood brothers, as we are, but brothers in spirit. Neither you nor I can change the world or human nature and we can only aim at changing attitudes - and perhaps teach those who have so much to give a portion of their blessings to those who have less.Collection: Brother
Sometimes we have to lie so that we do not needlessly hurt others. The important thing is that we are honest with ourselves. That we know how to bend without breaking ourselves. -Crepusculo LepidopteraCollection: Hurt
I believe in humanity - not just you or Mother, but all mankind. Do I sound like a preacher or a cheap politician making a pretty speech? This is not what I intend to do... I believe in life, that it is sweet and that, for all its occasional bitterness, we-man, that is-are headed toward something better - fulfillment. There is much shame, however, and so much hypocrisy around us and these inhibit our fulfillment as human beings.Collection: Mother
The Japanese bureaucracy is unique. It is also very powerful, although it is now the object of so much criticism. Many of Japans brightest made it a pillar of strength and continuity.Collection: Powerful
A virtuoso performance. Scott Thompson’s biography of the soldier statesman Fidel V. Ramos illustrates the fascinating and complex geography of Filipino politics and its relation with the American hegemon. It’s first-rate scholarship and equally first-rate writing.Collection: Writing