Ilustrado Quotes & Sayings

Joblessness is an opportunity to fulfill purpose — Sunday Adelaja

I usually say I write for the smartest, cleverest, wittiest audience I know, and that's me. — Harlan Ellison

What we actually do reflects our highest priorities. That means we can proclaim our commitment to prayer until the cows come home, but unless we actually pray, our actions disown our words. — D. A. Carson

With 'Ilustrado,' I set out to change the way we read literature, and I think I failed spectacularly. In fact, I know I failed. In reaching further than I could, I may not have produced a life- or literature-changing book, but I did produce one I am proud of. — Miguel Syjuco

The immigrant experience in 'Ilustrado' was only a small part of what I intended to be a broader look at the Filipino experience, even if that broader look was itself merely a specific perspective. — Miguel Syjuco

What is a memory? Not a storehouse, not a trunk in the attic, but an instrument that constantly refines the past into a narrative, accessible and acceptable to oneself. — Stanley Kauffmann

Every teenager is both a hero and a failure. When we become adults we have to choose where in the middle we'll be. — Miguel Syjuco

The world began without man, and it will complete itself without him. — Claude Levi-Strauss

I have always loved animals since I was very young. — Nafisa Joseph

It's confidence; it has to be something good about getting old. One of the things is that you just don't stress about some stuff that made you so worried. — Garrison Keillor

I'm making this confession without hope for absolution.
One morning, I pretended to go crazy. Perhaps in pretending, I proved myself so. — Miguel Syjuco

Virginia Woolf's writing is no more than glamorous knitting. I believe she must have a pattern somewhere. — Edith Sitwell

Some forms of motor neuron disease are genetically linked, but I have no indication that my kind is. No other member of my family has had it. But I would be in favour of abortion if there was a high risk. — Stephen Hawking

I feel quite sad for the young musicians coming up because they may never get to pay their rent properly. It doesn't matter what the genre; nowadays, it's so much harder than it ever was. — Bryan Adams

The instant before something comes into focus is more exciting than any sharp certainty. Photography, child, is about the passing of time. Capturing is the goal of literature. Timelessness is the task of music and painting. But a good photograph holds time just as a vase holds water. The water will evaporate and the vase becomes a memorial to it. What separates a snapshot from a masterpiece is that the latter is a metaphor of patience ... — Miguel Syjuco

I have to believe that literature can effect change; otherwise, I would have no purpose in my life and would have wasted four years on 'Ilustrado.' — Miguel Syjuco