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" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Values
World
Culture
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" I can't understand Urdu, Bahasa or Russian, but when the Pakistani Faiz, the Indonesian Rendra and the Russian Rosdentvensky declaim, I can feel the living throb of rhythm and music, the warmth and passion of their poetry, as do the hundreds, not a mere roomful, of poetry lovers in the audience. "
F. Sionil Jose
Passion
Music
Feel
" My reading of philosophy and history is desultory; I know so much and yet so little. "
F. Sionil Jose
Reading
Know
Much
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Power
Strength
Men
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Art
I Can
Simple
" Always remember: the alleviation of poverty is never a political or economic issue - it is moral. "
F. Sionil Jose
Political
Remember
Poverty
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Know
Rules
Anarchy
" A weak people and its equally debilitated leaders are bludgeoned by history. It maims them into the cripples that they are meant to be. "
F. Sionil Jose
People
Meant To Be
Weak
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Talking
Find
Learn
" I was a senior high school student at the Far Eastern University when the war with Japan broke out in 1941. "
F. Sionil Jose
War
Student
School
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Past
People
Nation
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Our
Noise
Radio
" All through history, a nation or a civilization's enduring glory is articulated by its mega constructions - the pyramids, the lofty cathedrals of the Christian world. "
F. Sionil Jose
World
History
Christian
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Art
Appreciation
Pride
" Class - or the economic status of individuals - is evident in all societies, some very well stratified by a rigid caste system determined by birth. "
F. Sionil Jose
Class
Birth
Economic
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Look
Past
Me
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Look
Age
Past
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Literature
Opinion
You
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Life
Heart
Experience
" Poetry is emotion, passion, love, grief - everything that is human. It is not for zombies by zombies. "
F. Sionil Jose
Emotion
Grief
Love
" Language as a communication tool is the primary element from which literature is created. Even in pre-literate societies, it exists as songs, riddles, or epics that are chanted. "
F. Sionil Jose
Language
Communication
Literature
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Art
Creativity
Hard Work
" The literary depiction of life and its moral dilemmas compel us to use our conscience, to make those infallible distinctions between right and wrong. "
F. Sionil Jose
Life
Wrong
Right
" I write entirely in English; Tagalog chauvinists chide me for this. I feel no guilt in doing so. But I am sad that I cannot write in my native Ilokano. History demanded this; if it isn't English I am using now, I would most probably be writing in Spanish like Rizal, or even German or Japanese. "
F. Sionil Jose
I Am
Doing
History
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Flame
Nostalgia
Matter
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Harvest
Cool
Glow
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Then
Worship
Past
" Writing is a solitary profession; you are really alone when you write. Then the emotions become well shaped and distinct. But their transition into words must be done deliberately and with rigid artistry. "
F. Sionil Jose
Emotions
Alone
Words
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Looking
Live
Time
" 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. "
F. Sionil Jose
Where
Central
Saw
" The Japanese covet important symbols - their heroic past as enshrined in Yasukuni, the Imperial family which has never been sullied by scandal. "
F. Sionil Jose
Past
Family
Important