Quotes by Miguel Syjuco - Page 1

Love and honesty don't mix.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Honesty
Love And Honesty
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History is changed by martyrs who tell the truth.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Changed
Martyr
Telling The Truth
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Being remembered is all anyone can ask from a lost love.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Lost
Lost Love
Remembered
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Angry men have little to live for when their rage becomes ineffective.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Men
Angry Man
Littles
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To be an honest writer, you have to be away from home, and totally alone in life.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Home
Away From Home
Honest
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It kills me how these days everyone has clinical justification for their strangeness.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Justification
Kill Me
These Days
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Freedom is the only thing we must demand in life, for all other good things stem from it
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Demand
Good Things
Stem
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I surprise myself that I'm not dead in the gutter somewhere, surprised that I haven't given up.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Surprise
Somewhere
Dead
Gutter
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Clichés remind and reassure us that we're not alone, that others have trod this ground long ago.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Long
Long Ago
Not Alone
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I love my homeland, but it's an absurd country. Politics in the Philippines is like spectator sports!
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Absurd
Homeland
Philippines
Love Politics Sports
Spectator
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Angst is not the human condition, it’s the purgatory between what we have and what we want but can’t get.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Angst
Human Condition
Want
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Sometimes one waits too long for the perfect moment before snapping the picture. You never realize that you needed was to change perspective.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Patience
Long
Perfect
Perspective
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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 / Writer
Believe
Literature
Years
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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 / Writer
Life Change Believe
Effect
Wasted
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I've learned that I have to be happy with creating discussion and debate and that I shouldn't be trying to write a book that appeals to the consensus.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Appeals
Consensus
Debate
Discussion
Be Happy
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The Philippines, it has a politics of patronage. Family and favors, in addition to the old cliche of guns, goons and gold, really do still hold a lot of sway.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Favors
Gold
Patronage
Philippines
Addition
Guns
Sway
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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.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Character
People
Real
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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.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Opportunity
Different
Nurse
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I don't 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.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Abroad
Labourer
Maid
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If our greatest fear is to sink away alone and unremembered, the brutality that time will inflict upon each of us will always run stronger than any river's murky waves.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Running
Fear
Rivers
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I want to write a book that makes people debate, and makes people think, interact with each other and exchange ideas... I write because I'm engaged in this big conversation.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Conversation
Debate
Engaged
Exchange
Interact
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When you live in the Philippines or a country like that, you develop something of a very thick skin because you're confronted every day with all of the problems all around you.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Philippines
Thick
Thick Skin
Skin
Confronted
Develop
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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.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Decision
Exercise
Should Have
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Touching on universality is an important part of effective storytelling, but the problem with cliches is that they are tired and dull. And that's where writers must try to be artful.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Tired
Universality
Artful
Cliches
Effective
Writers
Important Part
The Problem With
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I grew up with a very privileged background. My father served as one of the cabinet ministers in Arroyo's government, and he's been a congressman for many years, and he's running again.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Congressman
Ministers
Privileged
Background
Cabinet
Served
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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 / Writer
Filipino
Perspective
Broader
Immigrant
Intended
Merely
Small Part
Specific
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I don't believe in nationalism. I think it's a bunch of slogans. It's a bunch of poor attempts at creating pride. My problem with nationalism is that it becomes exclusionary. We start to exclude people.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Bunch
Creating
Nationalism
Poor
Pride
Problem
Slogans
Start Believe People
Attempts
Becomes
Believe Start People
Exclude
Start
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Postmodernism was a reaction to modernism. Where modernism was about objectivity, postmodernism was about subjectivity. Where modernism sought a singular truth, postmodernism sought the multiplicity of truths.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Truth
Modernism
Multiplicity
Objectivity
Postmodernism
Reactions
Subjectivity
Reaction
Singular
Sought
Truths
Where
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If I were to go back to the Philippines, I would probably end up teaching creative writing at a university. I wouldn't be able to write, for I would become too jaded to be able to view the existing situation objectively.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Creative
Creative Writing
Jaded
Philippines
Situation
University
Existing
Objectively
View
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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.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Home
Champion
Long
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I look at western literature and especially North American literature, and I feel like it gets bogged down so much with all of that, with domestic stories and relationships and a woman dealing with the loss of her husband.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
American Literature
Loss
Western
Bogged
Dealing
Domestic
North American
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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.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Iraq
Powerful
Teaching
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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.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Afghanistan
Nation Building
Philippines
Powerful
States
Vietnam
Initial
Powerful Tool
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When I was young, I spent my days and nights trying to impress future generations. I spent them. They're gone. All because I was deathly afraid of being forgotten. And then came the regret. The worst things of all worst things.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Night
Regret
Trying
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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 / Writer
Produce
Reaching
Life Change I Am
Failed
Further
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The Miguel Syjuco character is not me. I wanted him to represent my own fears and frustrations and guilt, my own worst tendencies and my optimistic expectations. He's a cautionary tale for me. But he's also an examination of the darkest things that haunt me as a person.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Optimistic
Examination
Guilt
Tendencies
Cautionary
Represent
Darkest
Fears
Frustrations
Haunt
Tale
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There is that potential of the expats coming back to the Philippines. But sadly they are no opportunities, no incentive for them to come back home. Successive governments have, in fact, been training them to export them rather than working on the economy to welcome them home.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Economy
Philippines
Training
Welcome
Export
Governments
In Fact
Opportunities
Sadly
Successive
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I have no illusions that my work can rouse the masses to create change, because literature simply doesn't have that power anymore in my country, if it does anywhere. But I do hope that it can be read by those who are in positions to create change, or that it can at least be part of that dialogue.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Dialogue
Literature
Anymore
Change Work Hope
Simply
Illusions
Masses
Positions
Rouse
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'Illustrado' is not an autobiography. Only the ideas are autobiographical; the ideas of bitterness, frustration, unchanging society, an individual lost, social awkwardness... The book satirises archetypes from across Filipino society, and I felt that the least I could do was offer myself up, too.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Autobiography
Awkwardness
Bitterness
Filipino
Frustration
Unchanging
Archetypes
Autobiographical
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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
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Humanity
Tails
Tyrants
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What I do know is that writing is the thing I am best at, and I don't have the stomach, the ability, the strength or the courage to enter the political arena. And I think writing can be a political act, if only to let those people accountable know they are being watched. Literature can be a conscience.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Arena
Conscience
Stomach
Accountable
Watched
Political Act
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I read a blog about this young filmmaker in the Philippines who made a short film, and one of the characters in the film reads my novel and then starts discussing the novel with someone. The idea that my book can inspire another artist and be part of that other artist's work... that's the reason I write.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Discussing
Filmmaker
Inspire
Novel
Philippines
Blog
Short
Reads
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You can’t bring an unwritten place to life without losing something substantial. Manila is the cradle, the graveyard, the memory. The Mecca, the Cathedral, the bordello. The shopping mall, the urinal, the discotheque. I’m hardly speaking in metaphor. It’s the most impermeable of cities. How does one convey all that?
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Cities
Memories
Shopping
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I treat my writing like a day job, like my main job, even if for many years I was doing other jobs to pay the bills. I worked as a copy editor. I was a medical guinea pig. I was an eBay power seller of ladies' handbags. I was an assistant to a bookie at the horse races. I bartended. I did anything I could to make ends meet.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
Jobs
Medical
Bills
Ebay
Guinea
Handbags
Horse
Pay
Assistant
Copy
Day Job
Editor
Guinea Pig
Seller
Ladies
Main
Meet
Pig
Races
Treat
Worked
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I studied in New York. I fell in love with an Australian-born, half-Filipina girl. So we moved to Australia when she went to her university and I moved with her. We moved to Montreal because she was going to take her year abroad, and I wanted to see if I could keep on writing there. It's really hard to make it as a writer in the Philippines.
Miguel Syjuco / Writer
New York
Australia
If I Could
Montreal
Moved
Philippines
University
Studied
Abroad
Love New See
Writer
York
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