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

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The Japanese bureaucracy is unique. It is also very powerful, although it is now the object of so much criticism. Many of Japan's brightest made it a pillar of strength and continuity. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "