F. Sionil Jose Quotes

58 quotes in 903 categories

• 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…
• In the Western tradition, the first writers were teachers and historians, vastly traveled, who spiced their reports with fantasies. They were also poets who sang…
• My reading of philosophy and history is desultory; I know so much and yet so little.
• Poetry, fiction as novels or short stories - these are autonomous as created by their authors. They should stand on their own, like pieces of…
• 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…
• 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…
• Contemplation is a luxury of the middle class, the very rich.
• I can imagine the writers of China, England and France, crippled and unsure of themselves when they feel that the ghosts of Confucius, Mencius, Chaucer…
• A weak people and its equally debilitated leaders are bludgeoned by history. It maims them into the cripples that they are meant to be.
• This is the harsh truth about us: not only do Filipinos ignore books, literature - we do not understand how important the arts are -…
• Japan is very cosmopolitan - it values its origins, but a world view hovers above this narrow perspective. The interest of the Japanese in their…
• I was a senior high school student at the Far Eastern University when the war with Japan broke out in 1941.
• 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…
• 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…
• The ethnic differences among Filipinos are very real. The paucity of arable land, for instance, explains the industry of the Ilokanos and the Cebuanos.
• Industrialization starts with the formation of capital - it does not matter how. It can be created by saving, by the state enforcing its will…
• My wife and I often visit Rosales and the Ilokos as a matter of habit or whim induced by nostalgia, homesickness - whatever draws pilgrims…
• Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found.
• The literary depiction of life and its moral dilemmas compel us to use our conscience, to make those infallible distinctions between right and wrong.
• Colonialism subdues in many dulcet guises. It conquered under the pretext of spreading Christianity, civilization, law and order, to make the world safe for democracy.

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