Jessica Hagedorn Quotes & Sayings

The Suffering Pilipino: We Pinoys suffer collectively from a cultural inferiority complex. We are doomed by our need for assimilation into the West and our own curious fatalism...He describes us as a complex nation of cynics, descendants of warring tribes which were baptized and colonized to death by Spaniards and Americans, as a nation betrayed and then united only by our hunger for glamour and our Hollywood dreams. — Jessica Hagedorn

I also identify as a Latin person, a person who has Latin blood. — Jessica Hagedorn

Life is not simple, and people can't be boxed into being either heroes or villains. — Jessica Hagedorn

There were also horror shows on the radio. Very terrifying and thrilling to me as a kid. They had all these creepy sound effects. They would come on at ten o'clock at night, and I just would scare myself to death. — Jessica Hagedorn

There are certain regions in the country where the indigenous people eat dogs. — Jessica Hagedorn

We didn't have television until I was about eight years old, so it was either the movies or radio. A lot of radio drama. That was our television, you know. We had to use our imagination. So it was really those two things, and the comics, that I immersed myself in as a child. — Jessica Hagedorn

I have been definitely influenced more by Latin American writers than by any other type of writer. They are very close in terms of voice - their humor, their fatalism, their ... well, that over-used term 'magical realism.' It's a wonderful term that's just been used so much, we don't know what it means anymore. — Jessica Hagedorn

Music is very influential to my writing, as are theater and film. — Jessica Hagedorn

Becoming a mother has helped make me a tougher, stronger writer. — Jessica Hagedorn

Growing up in the Philippines, I loved all kinds of movies. We had a very healthy film industry there when I was a child. — Jessica Hagedorn

It's not just NYU. There are days when I feel like I'm stranded in some upscale mall in Pasadena. Don't even get me started on the insidious transformation of Bleecker Street! — Jessica Hagedorn

I'm preparing for a multimedia theater piece, Airport Music, that's coming up in New York City. — Jessica Hagedorn

My identity is linked to my grandmother, who's pure Filipino, as pure as you can probably get. And that shaped my imagination. So that's how I identify. — Jessica Hagedorn

The punk scene in NY was so gritty and nihilistic & I was like ooh I want to do that — Jessica Hagedorn

There is real beauty in my eyes when I lose my mind. — Jessica Hagedorn

All the fabulous and fearless writers gathered here, whether they are living in Manila, the US, or elsewhere in the ever-growing Philippine diaspora, have a deep connection and abiding love for this crazy-making, intoxicating city. There's nothing like it in the world, and they know it, — Jessica Hagedorn

But I think there's a genuine joy, too, a sense that no matter what, even if my stomach's growling, I'm going to dance. That's what I want to leave people with at the end of the play. After all this, people still know how to live. — Jessica Hagedorn

Writers and scholars have emerged in recent times (some familiar, some new) to continue to challenge the notion of a literature that encompasses the world - and reaffirms our existence in it. It is a multicultural vision that embraces and includes our shrinking universe; it is a multicultural vision that the white man fears and a vision that the rest of us can celebrate. — Jessica Hagedorn

Everything matters. Time is precious. — Jessica Hagedorn

I'm part Spanish. My paternal grandfather came from Spain via Singapore to Manila. On my mother's side it's more mixture, with a Filipino mother and a father who was Scotch Irish-French; you know, white American hybrid. And I also have on my father's side a great-great-grandmother who was Chinese. So, I'm a hybrid. — Jessica Hagedorn

[On The Philippines:] ... eighty dialects and languages are spoken; we are a fragmented nation of loyal believers, divided by blood feuds and controlled by the Church. — Jessica Hagedorn

I love writing dialogue, and I think a lot of my writing is visual and very cinematic. — Jessica Hagedorn

I don't know what issues concerning identity have helped contemporary fiction evolve to what it is now. All I know is that the range of voices that are being heard and published is a lot more diverse than when I was coming up. — Jessica Hagedorn

I don't believe in sampling some Tibetan music just to make it sound groovy, but you do your homework, you understand what you're doing with it. — Jessica Hagedorn

Hybridity keeps me from being rigid about most things. It has taught me to appreciate the contradictions in the world and in my life. I scavenge from the best. — Jessica Hagedorn

I'm an underdog person, so I align myself with those who seem to be not considered valuable in polite society. — Jessica Hagedorn

I think for a lot of so-called post-colonial peoples, there's a feeling of not being quite legitimate, of not being pure enough. — Jessica Hagedorn

Adaptability is the simple secret of survival. — Jessica Hagedorn