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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.