75 Quotes by Miguel Syjuco

Vilification, by its definition, creates an antagonistic struggle, an us-versus-them mentality, that throws us all into a senseless battle-royale

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?

‎"A writer has to talk about the things that go untalked about

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.

Cliches remind and reassure us that we're not alone, that other have trod this ground long ago.

How did we become so prejudiced by our idiosyncrasies?...We shared the same languages, but spoke of worlds so subtly different that language was not enough. Over time the big things were left unsaid; they gave way to the little things, those once-endearing imperfections that had somewhere become deal breakers.

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

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.

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.