With 'Ilustrado,' I set out to change the way we read literature, and I think I failed spectacularly. In fact, I know… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
'Illustrado' is not an autobiography. Only the ideas are autobiographical; the ideas of bitterness, frustration, unchanging society, an individual lost, social awkwardness...… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
I treat my writing like a day job, like my main job, even if for many years I was doing other jobs… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
I studied in New York. I fell in love with an Australian-born, half-Filipina girl. So we moved to Australia when she went… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
“Here, need blurs the line between good and bad, and a constant promise of random violence sticks like humidity down your back.” — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
“He fidgets. Thinks. Observes his fellow passengers. Judges everyone, in the traditional Filipino sport of justifying both personal and shared insecurities.” — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
When I was young, I spent my days and nights trying to impress future generations. I spent them. They're gone. All because I was… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
You can’t bring an unwritten place to life without losing something substantial. Manila is the cradle, the graveyard, the memory. The Mecca, the Cathedral,… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
“A man's life is all he has. When you're old, it's all you'll ever have.” — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
“A father must take credit for his child, but never a child for his father.” — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
I surprise myself that I'm not dead in the gutter somewhere, surprised that I haven't given up. — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
“We liked to believe there is an alternate world, a better world, populated entirely by characters created by the yearnings of humanity--governing and inspiring… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
I have to believe that literature can effect change; otherwise, I would have no purpose in my life and would have wasted four years… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
I don't see myself as any different from all the other Filipinos who have gone abroad looking for opportunity, to be a nurse, a… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
