F. Sionil José Quotes

We write from life and call it literature, and literature lives because we are in it.

F. Sionil José

Life, Art, Writing

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When you love someone, that love has no limit, no measure, because you know in your deepest being that when that love demands sacrifice, you will give it without question. You will not look for reasons, for justification - the act of giving, of sacrificing, is a natural compulsion, like breathing, and it will, in the end, surprise you because you did it without second thoughts.

F. Sionil José

Sacrifice, Breathing, Giving

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Time will come that all that we love, we will eventually lose, and all that we hate we will eventually face.

F. Sionil José

Hate, Faces, Loses

"Mass". Book by F. Sionil José, 1973.

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No man stops caring as long as he breathes. As long as he has a mind and memory, he will care. This is what separates us from the animals. We have feelings.

F. Sionil José

Memories, Caring, Animal

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I write to please myself—of course, that is a given. But beyond this reach for pleasure, I know that I write for my countrymen, that they may be lifted from apathy and ignorance. I write because of a compulsion to make something out of the nothing that is my own life.

F. Sionil José

Writing, Ignorance, Apathy

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You will find that our enemies are our own kin. It is they who betray us. So learn this most important lesson-in the end, our worst enemy is ourselves

F. Sionil José

Worst Enemy, Important, Lessons

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We compromise ourselves the day we are born. If we are looking for the original sin, there it is- our incapacity to live honestly with ourselves because we are human, because we are shackled by custom, by obligations and we accept compromise only in the light of our conscience, answerable as we are only to ourselves.

F. Sionil José

Light, Compromise, Sin

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We read because they teach us about people, we can see ourselves in them,in their problems.And by seeing ourselves in them, we clarify ourselves, we explain ourselves to ourselves, so we can live with ourselves.

F. Sionil José

People, Problem, Teach

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Just because you have so much to give does not mean that they'll all be accepted. There's more to giving than just giving.

F. Sionil José

Mean, Giving, Doe

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When I wake up every morning, I thank God for the new day.

F. Sionil José

Morning, New Day, Thank God

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Perhaps, this is what love has always been, whether it is for a woman of for a cause -- the readiness to give and not ask for anything in return, the unquestioning willingness to lose everything, even if that loss is as something as precious as life itself.

F. Sionil José

Loss, Giving, Return

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We are shallow because we are mayabang, ego driven, and do not have the humility to understand that we are only human, much too human to mistake knowledge for wisdom.

F. Sionil José

Mistake, Humility, Ego

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The obscenities of this country are not girls like you. It is the poverty which is obscene, and the criminal irresponsibility of the leaders who make this poverty a deadening reality. The obscenities in this country are the places of the rich, the new hotels made at the expense of the people, the hospitals where the poor die when they get sick because they don't have the money either for medicines or services. It is only in this light that the real definition of obscenity should be made.

F. Sionil José

Girl, Country, Real

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I do not want to be bored listening to music that is muffled and known only to the poet himself.

F. Sionil José

Bored, Listening, Want

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Our appreciation of folk art will strengthen our identities, our pride in belonging to a community. People trained in the creative use of their hands soon acquire skills, excellent craftsmanship which will be the most important measure of how well we can industrialize.

F. Sionil José

Gratitude, Appreciation, Art

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I wish I could be honest and true, but truth as I see it is not something abstract, a pious generality---It is justice at work, righteous, demanding, disciplined, sincere and unswerving; otherwise, it is not, it cannot be truth at all.

F. Sionil José

Justice, Wish, Honest

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Life is holy and it is for all of us. God's design, I cannot understand myself and I never will, but I do know that what we are experiencing now will pass and in the end we will all be brothers, not just blood brothers, as we are, but brothers in spirit. Neither you nor I can change the world or human nature and we can only aim at changing attitudes - and perhaps teach those who have so much to give a portion of their blessings to those who have less.

F. Sionil José

Brother, Attitude, Blessing

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‎Sometimes we have to lie so that we do not needlessly hurt others. The important thing is that we are honest with ourselves. That we know how to bend without breaking ourselves. -Crepusculo Lepidoptera

F. Sionil José

Hurt, Lying, Important

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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, too, because the foul and the good all die. The past, the present, and the future-what escape is there from these? None-and yet sometimes we are life's happy victims.

F. Sionil José

Suicide, Past, Life Is

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I believe in humanity - not just you or Mother, but all mankind. Do I sound like a preacher or a cheap politician making a pretty speech? This is not what I intend to do... I believe in life, that it is sweet and that, for all its occasional bitterness, we-man, that is-are headed toward something better - fulfillment. There is much shame, however, and so much hypocrisy around us and these inhibit our fulfillment as human beings.

F. Sionil José

Mother, Sweet, Believe

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November is auspicious in so many parts of the country: the rice harvest is already in, the weather starts to cool, and the festive glow which precedes Christmas has began to brighten the landscape.

F. Sionil José

Christmas, Country, Weather

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The Japanese bureaucracy is unique. It is also very powerful, although it is now the object of so much criticism. Many of Japans brightest made it a pillar of strength and continuity.

F. Sionil José

Powerful, Unique, Japan

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Of course, we are all egoists. Egoism is so much a part of our humanity.

F. Sionil José

Humanity, Egoism, Courses

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A virtuoso performance. Scott Thompson’s biography of the soldier statesman Fidel V. Ramos illustrates the fascinating and complex geography of Filipino politics and its relation with the American hegemon. It’s first-rate scholarship and equally first-rate writing.

F. Sionil José

Writing, Soldier, Biographies

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In the '50s, I was traveling alone all over Mindanao, Basilan, all the way to Tawi-Tawi with just a camera and a notebook. I always stayed in the houses of Moros.

F. Sionil José

Notebook, House, Cameras

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Born: December 3, 1924
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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