We must know our own roles. We should also know the roles that others play, and the rules such roles follow. In… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
Cultural values are, in themselves, neutral as well as universal, and so much depends on how individuals or ethnic groups use them.… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
A weak people and its equally debilitated leaders are bludgeoned by history. It maims them into the cripples that they are meant… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
For them who delay aging, who infuse decrepit bodies with youth and beauty - they must rejoice in the fullness of their… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
Like so many poor Ilokanos, my grandparents left their village, for it could no longer sustain them. The Ilocos is a narrow… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
We are shallow because our media are so horribly shallow. Every morning, I peruse the papers, and there is so little to… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
As artists, we must not go down to the level of the masa; we should bring them up, intellectualize our languages, create… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
In the visual arts, particularly painting, I distrust all those abstractions, those artificial constructions. I have a very simple way of judging… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
I find it always pleasurable talking with young people, particularly those aspiring to be writers, out of nostalgia, and because I've always… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
“There is nothing like the land you belong to claiming you back. But everywhere the earth is the same. -Old David” — F. Sionil José Copy Share Image
“Indeed time has that ultimate capacity to render the passions of the past when recalled in the present as no more than grandiloquent gestures.” — F. Sionil José Copy Share Image
Class - or the economic status of individuals - is evident in all societies, some very well stratified by a rigid caste system determined… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
We write from life and call it literature, and literature lives because we are in it. — F. Sionil José Copy Share Image
I can imagine the writers of China, England and France, crippled and unsure of themselves when they feel that the ghosts of Confucius, Mencius,… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
Always remember: the alleviation of poverty is never a political or economic issue - it is moral. — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
In the end, religion teaches us to value truth, justice and freedom. — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
My reading of philosophy and history is desultory; I know so much and yet so little. — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
Life is always sad. That's what makes suicide so tempting because life is all that we really have and haven't. Death makes us equals,… — F. Sionil José Copy Share Image
We recognize the distinctness of Asian art when we turn to its traditional forms, recognize it as Japanese, Chinese and Indian, even Balinese or… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
“There is nothing in the world which an artist cannot recreate into something poetic, ennobling. And why do we read these things? They are… — F. Sionil José Copy Share Image
All through history, a nation or a civilization's enduring glory is articulated by its mega constructions - the pyramids, the lofty cathedrals of the… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
