Freedom is the only thing we must demand in life, for all other good things stem from it

Fiction is a very powerful tool for teaching history. The Philippines was the first Iraq, the first Vietnam, the first Afghanistan, in the sense that it was the United States initial or baptismal experience in nation-building.

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.

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

Angst is not the human condition, it’s the purgatory between what we have and what we want but can’t get.

To be an honest writer, you have to be away from home, and totally alone in life.

I'm home and safe and filled with the comfort of being somewhere I've already been. The ruckus of homecoming is brutally enjoyable and everyone makes me feel like a champion. And all I had to do was stay away long enough.