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" 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. "

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" 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. "

F. Sionil Jose

Farmer

Government

Beer

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" Self-respect, the value of 'face,' is universal but is most pronounced in China, then in Japan where the Confucian ethic is most influential. "

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

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

" I can imagine the writers of China, England and France, crippled and unsure of themselves when they feel that the ghosts of Confucius, Mencius, Chaucer and Shakespeare and Victor Hugo are looking over their shoulders. "

" In a much larger sense, the problem of Sabah is directly influenced by the duplicity of imperial Britain. For whatever devious reason, the dismantling of the British empire created divisions and violence due to ethnic and religious differences. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" I tell young people who ask me about a future in writing not to go into it unless they get married to someone rich. "

F. Sionil Jose

People

Future

" Literature - Eastern and Western - abounds with stories, myths, legends about the search for youth, for eternal life. "

F. Sionil Jose

Youth

Literature

" The Japanese covet important symbols - their heroic past as enshrined in Yasukuni, the Imperial family which has never been sullied by scandal. "

" All dictators, the rich and famous, to the lowest security guard who holds a gun, easily forget that power is transitory. "

" 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. "

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

" For them who delay aging, who infuse decrepit bodies with youth and beauty - they must rejoice in the fullness of their deeds. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" You should live in a manner that should enable you to devote time to writing and contemplation. As is often said, the writer is at work even when he is simply looking out the window. "