“Environment is what you make it and destiny is how you react to your environment: whether you try to overcome it or just resign yourself to it.”

“If for us culture means museum and library and open house and art gallery, for them it meant the activities and amenities of everyday life... The rift is... between "folk" culture, where the unscho...”

“Identity is the history that has gone into bone and blood and reshaped the flesh. Identity is not what we were but what we have become what we are at this moment.”

“This is the difference between the Spanish advent and the American; that the technical revolution provoked by the first produced the Filipino, while the cultural upheaval provoked by the second mer...”

“We are not quite conscious of the reason for our disdain when we refer to the illiterate past as wallowing in ignorance... What divides us from them is the column of print. Theirs was a total cultu...”

“When we say that the West has brought us nothing but evil, do we mean that beef is evil, that cabbages are evil that the guisado is evil?”

“Me quota ang pag-ibig. Sa bawat limang umiibig, isa lang ang magiging maligaya. Ang iba, iibig sa di sila iniibig. Iibig nang di natututo. O iibig sa wala. O di iibig kailanman.”

“It's funny how love can fit inside a brown cardboard box. With relationships, people often think that things pile up. But when it ends, they're surprised how few these things turn out to be. Or at ...”

“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, ...”

“I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.”

“The point, I decided, wasn't to have the autobiography or even the memories. The point was who I became when I wrote.”

“The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but act...”