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.

I dont see myself as any different from all the other Filipinos who have gone abroad looking for opportunity, to be a nurse, a labourer, a maid or a prostitute.

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

The slaves of today will become the tyrants of tomorrow--the proletariat overthrows the hegemon to become the hegemon itself, only to be eventually overthrown by a proto-hegemon that will in turn lose its position. It is this dizzying cycle that keeps humanity chasing the tail it lost millennia ago

We referenced fictional characters as if they were people to learn from. As if real-life people were too nebulous, too private and unreal for us to understand.

History is changed by martyrs who tell the truth.

Literature is an ethical leap. It is a moral decision. A perilous exercise in constant failure. Literature should have grievances, because there are so many grievances in the world.