Quotes by Miguel Syjuco

About Miguel Syjuco:

Miguel Syjuco is a Filipino writer from Manila and the grand prize winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize for his first novel Ilustrado.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

Miguel Syjuco

I transform fiction into memory.

Miguel Syjuco

History is changed by martyrs who tell the truth.

Miguel Syjuco

Love and honesty don’t mix.

Miguel Syjuco

Perhaps we have stopped ourselves from being invented, from self-realization, by blaming others for our wordlessness.

Miguel Syjuco

It kills me how these days everyone has clinical justification for their strangeness.

Miguel Syjuco

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

The instant before something comes into focus is more exciting than any sharp certainty. Photography, child, is about the passing of time. Capturing is the goal of literature. Timelessness is the task of music and painting. But a good photograph hold...

Miguel Syjuco

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

Oh, how wonderfully romantic of you. Romantics are really only in love with themselves.

Miguel Syjuco

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

Miguel Syjuco

Every teenager is both a hero and a failure. When we become adults we have to choose where in the middle we’ll be.

Miguel Syjuco

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 th...

Miguel Syjuco

I surprise myself that I'm not dead in the gutter somewhere, surprised that I haven't given up.

Miguel Syjuco

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 h...

Miguel Syjuco

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

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

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

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

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

Author Bio

  • NameMiguel Syjuco
  • DescriptionFilipino writer
  • BornNovember 17, 1976
  • CountryPhilippines
  • ProfessionWriter
  • WorksCrispin Salvador