“Literature suffers because writers give their books to colleagues who will then write glowing reviews or saccharine introductions.” — F. Sionil José Copy Share Image
You can't have integrity for breakfast, but try and keep it because it is perhaps the single most important word that defines… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found. — 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
Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
I tell young people who ask me about a future in writing not to go into it unless they get married to… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
What most readers do not realize is that it takes a particular genius to write funny, to satirize. — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
“The importance not just of history, but of roots - that a writer must have then to nurture, to remember if he… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
I write to please myself—of course, that is a given. But beyond this reach for pleasure, I know that I write for… — 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… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
I have always admired teachers because teaching, like the priesthood, medicine and writing, is a vocation. You don't become a teacher because… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
For decades, as literary editor, I have followed the growth of our creative writing in English. In my Solidaridad Bookshop, half of… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
In the Western tradition, the first writers were teachers and historians, vastly traveled, who spiced their reports with fantasies. They were also… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
You should live in a manner that should enable you to devote time to writing and contemplation. As is often said, the… — 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
A virtuoso performance. Scott Thompson’s biography of the soldier statesman Fidel V. Ramos illustrates the fascinating and complex geography of Filipino politics… — F. Sionil José Copy Share Image
I write entirely in English; Tagalog chauvinists chide me for this. I feel no guilt in doing so. But I am sad… — F. Sionil Jose Copy Share Image
Writing is a solitary profession; you are really alone when you write. Then the emotions become well shaped and distinct. But their… — 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
