Jessica Hagedorn
We didn't have television until I was about eight years old, so it was either the movies or radio. A lot of radio drama. That was our television, you know. We had to use our imagination. So it was really those two things, and the comics, that I immersed myself in as a child.Collection: Imagination
There is real beauty in my eyes when I lose my mind.Collection: Beauty
My identity is linked to my grandmother, who's pure Filipino, as pure as you can probably get. And that shaped my imagination. So that's how I identify.Collection: Imagination
I have been definitely influenced more by Latin American writers than by any other type of writer. They are very close in terms of voice - their humor, their fatalism, their... well, that over-used term 'magical realism.' It's a wonderful term that's just been used so much, we don't know what it means anymore.Collection: Humor
But I think there's a genuine joy, too, a sense that no matter what, even if my stomach's growling, I'm going to dance. That's what I want to leave people with at the end of the play. After all this, people still know how to live.Collection: Thinking
Adaptability is the simple secret of survival.Collection: Simple
Don't say Fili, sister. Say Pili. In Tagalog, pili means to choose. Pino means fine. Pilipino equals 'fine choice.Collection: Mean
Life is not simple, and people can't be boxed into being either heroes or villains.Collection: Hero
Writers and scholars have emerged in recent times (some familiar, some new) to continue to challenge the notion of a literature that encompasses the world - and reaffirms our existence in it. It is a multicultural vision that embraces and includes our shrinking universe; it is a multicultural vision that the white man fears and a vision that the rest of us can celebrate.Collection: Men
Hybridity keeps me from being rigid about most things. It has taught me to appreciate the contradictions in the world and in my life. I scavenge from the best.Collection: Appreciate
Everything matters. Time is precious.Collection: Matter
Becoming a mother has helped make me a tougher, stronger writer.Collection: Mother
I don't know what issues concerning identity have helped contemporary fiction evolve to what it is now. All I know is that the range of voices that are being heard and published is a lot more diverse than when I was coming up.Collection: Writing
I think for a lot of so-called post-colonial peoples, there's a feeling of not being quite legitimate, of not being pure enough.Collection: Thinking
[On The Philippines:] ... eighty dialects and languages are spoken; we are a fragmented nation of loyal believers, divided by blood feuds and controlled by the Church.Collection: Blood
Growing up in the Philippines, I loved all kinds of movies. We had a very healthy film industry there when I was a child. It's now gotten very limited. They only make action movies and hard-core exploitation movies. Women get raped; men get shot.Collection: Children
I love writing dialogue, and I think a lot of my writing is visual and very cinematic.Collection: Writing
Music is very influential to my writing, as are theater and film.Collection: Writing
All the fabulous and fearless writers gathered here, whether they are living in Manila, the US, or elsewhere in the ever-growing Philippine diaspora, have a deep connection and abiding love for this crazy-making, intoxicating city. There's nothing like it in the world, and they know it.Collection: Crazy
It's not just NYU. There are days when I feel like I'm stranded in some upscale mall in Pasadena. Don't even get me started on the insidious transformation of Bleecker Street!Collection: Nyu
I don't believe in sampling some Tibetan music just to make it sound groovy, but you do your homework, you understand what you're doing with it.Collection: Believe
The punk scene in NY was so gritty and nihilistic & I was like ooh I want to do thatCollection: Want
I also identify as a Latin person, a person who has Latin blood.Collection: Latin
I'm an underdog person, so I align myself with those who seem to be not considered valuable in polite society.Collection: Underdog
There were also horror shows on the radio. Very terrifying and thrilling to me as a kid. They had all these creepy sound effects. They would come on at ten o'clock at night, and I just would scare myself to death.Collection: Kids
I'm preparing for a multimedia theater piece, Airport Music, that's coming up in New York City.Collection: New York
There are certain regions in the country where the indigenous people eat dogs.Collection: Country