Miguel Syjuco

Love and honesty don't mix.

— Miguel Syjuco

“To be angry implies you care”

— Miguel Syjuco

“I transform fiction into memory.”

— Miguel Syjuco

“morality... comes at a price.”

— Miguel Syjuco

History is changed by martyrs who tell the truth.

— Miguel Syjuco

“Love isn't based on gratitude. Respect isn't based on debt.”

— Miguel Syjuco

To be an honest writer, you have to be away from home, and totally alone in life.

— Miguel Syjuco

“Cliches remind and reassure us that we're not alone, that other have trod this ground long ago.”

— Miguel Syjuco

“How could a feeling that leaves you so hollow be a pain that is so sharp?”

— Miguel Syjuco

“...just because an ideology dies doesn't mean the value of its ideas is nullified”

— Miguel Syjuco

“A man's life is all he has. When you're old, it's all you'll ever have.”

— Miguel Syjuco

Angst is not the human condition, it’s the purgatory between what we have and what we want but can’t get.

— Miguel Syjuco

“My absence was gradual, until one day it became complete.”

— Miguel Syjuco

“All of humanity's crimes,' Salvador said, spitting a bone atop the pyramidal pile in his bowl, 'are only degrees of theft.”

— Miguel Syjuco

Sometimes one waits too long for the perfect moment before snapping the picture. You never realize that you needed was to change…

— Miguel Syjuco

“Vilification, by its definition, creates an antagonistic struggle, an us-versus-them mentality, that throws us all into a senseless battle-royale”

— Miguel Syjuco

Touching on universality is an important part of effective storytelling, but the problem with cliches is that they are tired and dull.…

— Miguel Syjuco

“Here, need blurs the line between good and bad, and a constant promise of random violence sticks like humidity down your back.”

— Miguel Syjuco

I grew up with a very privileged background. My father served as one of the cabinet ministers in Arroyo's government, and he's…

— Miguel Syjuco

“Children sometimes know best and we chide them for being precocious. Then we grow aged and become again like children, and they…

— Miguel Syjuco

“Sure, each night we staggered home, unfired, unglazed, already broken without knowing it. But at least we were trying.”

— Miguel Syjuco

There is that potential of the expats coming back to the Philippines. But sadly they are no opportunities, no incentive for them…

— Miguel Syjuco

When I was young, I spent my days and nights trying to impress future generations. I spent them. They're gone. All because…

— Miguel Syjuco

I treat my writing like a day job, like my main job, even if for many years I was doing other jobs…

— Miguel Syjuco

The Miguel Syjuco character is not me. I wanted him to represent my own fears and frustrations and guilt, my own worst…

— Miguel Syjuco

I look at western literature and especially North American literature, and I feel like it gets bogged down so much with all…

— Miguel Syjuco

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

I have no illusions that my work can rouse the masses to create change, because literature simply doesn't have that power anymore…

— Miguel Syjuco

You can’t bring an unwritten place to life without losing something substantial. Manila is the cradle, the graveyard, the memory. The Mecca,…

— Miguel Syjuco

“The instant before something comes into focus is more exciting than any sharp certainty. Photography, child, is about the passing of time.…

— Miguel Syjuco

“...guilt is often assumed before innocence can be proven.”

— Miguel Syjuco

Angry men have little to live for when their rage becomes ineffective.

— Miguel Syjuco

Clichés remind and reassure us that we're not alone, that others have trod this ground long ago.

— Miguel Syjuco

“My absence was gradual, until one day it was complete.”

— Miguel Syjuco

Being remembered is all anyone can ask from a lost love.

— Miguel Syjuco

“Sometimes, courage is really just cowardice. Sometimes the bravest thing is to let go.”

— Miguel Syjuco

“Let me welcome you to my first country, my Third World.”

— Miguel Syjuco

“Fiction, however, sometimes ensures disappointment with reality”

— Miguel Syjuco

“You were so beautiful when you were young. So much idealism it was inspiring.”

— Miguel Syjuco

“As we all came to discover the limitations of assimilation, we grew closer as a family”

— Miguel Syjuco