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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" Class - or the economic status of individuals - is evident in all societies, some very well stratified by a rigid caste system determined by birth. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" What is needed in the theater, in fact for all our art forms, is a vibrant critical tradition. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" The influence of teachers extends beyond the classroom, well into the future. It is they who shape and enrich the minds of the young, who touch their hearts and souls. It is they who shape a nation's future. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "