F. Sionil Jose Quotes

It has always been the many faceless men, those foot soldiers, who have suffered most, who have died. It is they who make a nation.

Was he the epitome of virtue because he was poor? How had it been in the village? There was foul gossip and cussedness anywhere in the world where small men had to think of their stomachs first before thinking about others.
-Istak

Tourists as well as natives want to see cultural achievements - whether it's the Banaue Terraces, the old churches or museums.

In the end, religion teaches us to value truth, justice and freedom.

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.

Duty comes in many forms; at times duty to country may conflict with duty to family. Yet, with a lucid mind the guises can be torn away and in the end, duty becomes but one, and that duty is to value justice above everything
to do what is right not because someone ordains it, but because the heart which is the seat of truth decrees it so.

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.

A revolution does not have to eat its children. In fact, it is those who are in power who could very well initiate revolutions. Let us not be old-fashioned and think only of armed uprisings of minorities as revolutions. Any movement that seeks to overhaul established attitudes is a revolution.

None will thank me for this, nor anyone will remember.
-Istak

Cultural values are, in themselves, neutral as well as universal, and so much depends on how individuals or ethnic groups use them. Values are influenced by so many factors such as geography, climate, religion, the economy and technology.

You can't have integrity for breakfast, but try and keep it because it is perhaps the single most important word that defines not just writers but all human beings.

I was a senior high school student at the Far Eastern University when the war with Japan broke out in 1941.

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.

When I wake up every morning, I thank God for the new day.

I was shocked at the revelation of her vaulting ambition, her greed. I should have loathed her or, knowing what kind of a person she was, I should have realized the futility of any personal attachment, the impossibility of its maturing into something warm, human enduring. By then, I had known a bit of the prostitute's psychology, the ruthlessness which marked her relationship with men,
but I ignored these.

This is the harsh truth about us: not only do Filipinos ignore books, literature - we do not understand how important the arts are - not just to those of us who work at it, but to the nation as a whole.

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.

Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of prose, and the art of the narrative.

If you loved someone for many years, you become instinctively aware of his feelings, even divine his thoughts and anticipate his actions, so that it would seem that you two have really become one.

Japan is very cosmopolitan - it values its origins, but a world view hovers above this narrow perspective. The interest of the Japanese in their folk culture is transcendental.

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.

We do not conquer life, no one can conquer what one cannot define, but at least it is there and it is ours to shape and to possess fully, with all the senses working, with all the powers of the heart surging, as we search for the answer to the greatest riddle of them all- death, the ultimate end, the enemy of all men, the final quietus to the noblest of emotions, the tenacity and ethereal creativity of faith.

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.

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.

Forgive those who are ignorant.
-Bit-tik

But when a person commits suicide, he does not do violence only to himself; he inflicts death upon those whom he least considered would be so afflicted.

To THOSE who want to lift this nation from the dungheap of history, the past does not matter - only the present, the awareness of the deadening rot which surrounds and suffocates us, and what we must do to vanquish it.

There is nothing like the land you belong to claiming you back. But everywhere the earth is the same.
-Old David

Poetry, fiction as novels or short stories - these are autonomous as created by their authors. They should stand on their own, like pieces of furniture that should be judged as to their usefulness, elegance.

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.

Are you, then, the god of white people, and if we who are brown worship You, do we receive your blessings as white men do?

I pray that You be not white, that You be without color and that You be in all men because goodness cannot be encased only in white.

In the visual arts, particularly painting, I distrust all those abstractions, those artificial constructions. I have a very simple way of judging them: if I can do them, they are not art.

Sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror, any mirror, and you wonder why that nose looks as it does, or those eyes--what is behind them, what depths can they reach. Your flesh, your skin, your lips--you know that that face which you behold is not yours alone but is already something which belongs to those who love it, to your family and all those who esteem you. But a person is more than a face or a bundle of nerves and a spigot of blood; a person is more than talking and feeling and being sensitive to the changes in the weather, to the opinions of people. A person is part of a clan, a race. And knowing this, you wonder where you came from and who preceded you; you wonder if you are strong, as you know those who lived before you were strong, and then you realize that there is a durable thread which ties you to a past you did not create but which created you. Then you know that you have to be sure about who you are and if you are not sure or if you do not know, you have to go back, trace those who hold the secret to your past. The search may not be fruitful; from this moment of awareness, there is nothing more frustrating than the belief that you have been meaningless. A man who knows himself can live with his imperfections; he knows instinctively that he is part of a wave that started from great, unnavigable expanses.

We go from one darkness to another and in between, the hidden light of the world, of knowledge. We open our eyes and in this circle of light, we see not just ourselves but others who are our likenesses. This light tells us all men are brothers, but even brothers kill one another, and it is in this light where all this happens. But living in this dazzling light does not blind us to what lies beyond the darkness from where we emerged and where we are going. It is faith which makes our journey possible though it be marred by the unkindness of men, their eternal faulting, before we pass on to another darkness.

The ethnic differences among Filipinos are very real. The paucity of arable land, for instance, explains the industry of the Ilokanos and the Cebuanos.

It is what one really owns in the end, a name.
-Istak

We are shallow because we have become enslaved by gross materialism, the glitter of gold and its equivalents, for which reason we think that only the material goods of this earth can satisfy us and we must therefore grab as much as can while we are able.

What do we do with mountains? For us who have lived most of our lives on monotonous level ground, mountains give indelible character to the landscape. They evoke wonder, awe, a multitude of questions as to their purpose, their grandeur and the mystery of creation.

I think that I was born on a day God was fast asleep. And whatever happened after my birth was nothing but dreamless ignorance.

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.

I have always admired teachers because teaching, like the priesthood, medicine and writing, is a vocation. You don't become a teacher because you want wealth. It is the same with writing.

But a nation which has people who can think, the nation already has strength. It is the mind which rules, not instinct or habit.

And old Padre Jose telling him to read as much as he could for the world was open only to those who could read and this skill was the most precious gift that any teacher could give.
-Istak

I have been blinded, as many of us have been blinded by our needs. I had thought of only my family
this was the limit to my responsibility, and therefore, my vision.
-Istak

Ninoy Aquino was a friend; I knew his faults, which were outweighed by his virtues.

Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found.

The heart of the theater is the play itself, how it dramatizes life to make it meaningful entertainment. To achieve depth and universality, the playwright must subject himself to intense critique, to know human character and behavior, and finally to construct art from the most mundane of human experience.

I would like to see all this as a big joke that is being played upon us, but I have seen what was wrought in the past
the men who were destroyed without their being lifted from the dungheap of poverty, without recourse to justice.

In the '50s, I was traveling alone all over Mindanao, Basilan, all the way to Tawi-Tawi with just a camera and a notebook. I always stayed in the houses of Moros.

Conquest by force is not sanctioned by God. The Americans have no right to be here. We will defeat them because we believe that this land they usurp is ours; God created it for us. The whole history of mankind has shown how faith endures while steel rusts.
-Istak

In the Western tradition, the first writers were teachers and historians, vastly traveled, who spiced their reports with fantasies. They were also poets who sang and entertained prince and pauper.

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.

The Philippines just need 100 youth to stand up for their country

Shit!" I shouted at him. "Now listen, my friend. The youth have no role. They have no jobs. They have no money. They are not in power and they do not make decisions. If there is going to be a war, they will be dumped into the army. And they will be killed like young men everywhere have been killed - whether or not they believe in the war. Having no role is their role.

We write from life and call it literature, and literature lives because we are in it.

November is auspicious in so many parts of the country: the rice harvest is already in, the weather starts to cool, and the festive glow which precedes Christmas has began to brighten the landscape.

Now listen ... You are young and you don't know many things, but do remember this: you are alone in this earth. Alone. You must act for yourself and no other. Kindness is not appreciated anymore, nor friendship. Think of yourself before you think of others. It's a cruel world and you have to be hard and cruel, too. They will strangle you if you don't strangle them first. Trust no one but your judgment
and even then, don't trust too much.

All her life, she was used to being pampered, to having everything she desired, but the things that she valued were never those that could be bought but those small tokens of truth and dogged fidelity which she, herself, could not give to anyone.

I regret that I have not written more, shouted louder, and acted out my beliefs.

I am for poetry that is admired by peasant and aristocrat alike.

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.

There is a great promise for our cultural growth, but this promise is achieved only when our artists recognize that all great art has nationality, an imprimatur achieved with the keenest remembrance of time and place.

It is easy to forgive a person his faults when he is dead because in death, he atones for his sins somewhat before the eyes of people who are still living and who have yet to add more on the parchment where their sins are listed.

This was one lesson that the war taught me - that every event in time presents opportunities that are recognizable only to those with enough sensibility to see them, that it is possible to thrive in adversity in the needs of the rulers are pandered to.

Wisdom is the beginning of sadness.

I said that if I were an industrialist or entrepreneur, I would invest in agriculture-based enterprises, for there is so much that can be done in manufacturing, in food preservation.

We cannot be rooted in the past forever. We must not be sentimental.

Always remember: the alleviation of poverty is never a political or economic issue - it is moral.

We are shallow because our media are so horribly shallow. Every morning, I peruse the papers, and there is so little to read in them. It is the same with radio - all that noise, that artifice.

The literary depiction of life and its moral dilemmas compel us to use our conscience, to make those infallible distinctions between right and wrong.

Of course, we are all egoists. Egoism is so much a part of our humanity.

Contemplation is a luxury of the middle class, the very rich.

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.

Our appreciation of folk art will strengthen our identities, our pride in belonging to a community. People trained in the creative use of their hands soon acquire skills, excellent craftsmanship which will be the most important measure of how well we can industrialize.

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 ...

The mind can also be kind and does blot out those episodes of our existence that we can't erase in our consciousness.

[Of the Bagos:] Like the Moros in the south, they are our brothers. We must recognize their belongingness to Filipinas, their willingness to fight for her.
-The Cripple

Poetry is emotion, passion, love, grief - everything that is human. It is not for zombies by zombies.

Listen, our history is a history...of failed revolutions. Always, in the end, someone was bought or someone turned traitor. We are a nation of traitors. We are a nation of traitors...we delight in seeing the downfall of others, even friends.

A weak people and its equally debilitated leaders are bludgeoned by history. It maims them into the cripples that they are meant to be.

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.

It was in the sugar hacienda in Negros, Panay and in Central Luzon where I saw the injustices heaped upon the sugar workers, particularly the sacadas, or seasonal workers.

I have tried to be very rational, although I know love and hate are not rational and explained feelings.

I do not want to be bored listening to music that is muffled and known only to the poet himself.

My reading of philosophy and history is desultory; I know so much and yet so little.

I find it always pleasurable talking with young people, particularly those aspiring to be writers, out of nostalgia, and because I've always felt that we oldies can learn so much from them and draw from them inspiration in our flagging and rickety years.

I am a commuter, not between the city and the village, although I do this frequently; not between the inane idealism of the classroom and the stifling reality beyond it, which I must do for survival and self-respect. I am a commuter between what I am now and what I was and would like to be and it is this commuting at lightning speed, at the oddest hours, that has done havoc to me.

But like my father, I have not done anything. I could not, because I am me, because I died long ago.

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.

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.

Industrialization starts with the formation of capital - it does not matter how. It can be created by saving, by the state enforcing its will on the people, by the very rich themselves.

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.

How can we build trust among our own people? How can we make them confident of themselves and their countrymen so that they will not sell their souls for a few silver dollars?
-The Cripple

The past could liberate or imprison - it creates a nation's character, provides the nourishment or the poison a people imbibe in their very marrow.

My wife and I often visit Rosales and the Ilokos as a matter of habit or whim induced by nostalgia, homesickness - whatever draws pilgrims to worshipped sanctuaries. Or, perhaps, what compels moths to seek the votive flame.

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.

What most readers do not realize is that it takes a particular genius to write funny, to satirize.

A Man's suicide is the ultimate violence he can fling against the granite circumstance he could not vanquish. Its a lonely and desperate act of supreme courage, not weakness. But it is also an admission of total failure, and the destruction of the self is the end of one person's struggle, an end where from there would be no rebirth or resurrection-nothing but the blackness, the impenetrable muck the hides everything, sometimes even the reason for death itself.

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.

For decades, as literary editor, I have followed the growth of our creative writing in English. In my Solidaridad Bookshop, half of my stock consists of Filipino books written in English and in the native languages.