F. Sionil Jose Quotes
As artists, we must not go down to the level of the masa; we should bring them up, intellectualize our languages, create classics out of our folk arts. We can do this if we are true to our roots and strive for excellence.
Quotes to Explore
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People are overwhelmed looking up at the Mount Everest of environmental challenges that we face. But you put one foot in front of the other and you recognize that not everyone is Sir Edmund Hillary.
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The only way to do is just to go for it, otherwise it ends up looking phoney.
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If you tell me I can't eat something, I'll obsess over it and end up overeating!
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My roots are in stand-up, and stand-up is very freeing. There's no script involved; you just fly.
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Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.
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Every little girl looks up to her mom so much - that's your first hero.
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Maybe I'll learn how, but the only thing I can do is turn down parts that would hurt my conscience.
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I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.
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Don't take anything from me because I'll track it down.
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My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.
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The first thousand days of a baby's life are likely to determine the rest of her life - whether she grows up to be healthy or not, both physically and emotionally.
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I didn't grow up around all white people; I never wanted to gentrify hip-hop, I've never wanted to speak to an all-white audience.
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I'm used to packing up and leaving, to condensing myself into a digestible version because people don't have much time to get to know me.
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Back when I was growing up, getting caught with a copy of 'Creepy,' 'Eerie' or 'Vampirella' was almost as bad as your parents finding out you were reading 'Playboy.'
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We did a play of 'Frog and Toad' at my elementary school. And I'm not sure if this is part of the book or it was something that we made up on our own, but I auditioned to play the black hole, which somehow makes sense to me.
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I grew up in a place where everybody was a storyteller, but nobody wrote. It was that kind of Celtic, storytelling tradition: everybody would have a story at the pub or at parties, even at the clubs and raves.
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Neither, I must say with all due respect, is it the power of teachers and students. Basically the true and real power is with working people of all colors, of all beliefs, of all national origins.
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I have Aboriginal roots on my father's side, and have always indentified with that spirit. I feel a lot of my music comes from that place.
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The growth of a naturalist is like the growth of a musician or athlete: excellence for the talented, lifelong enjoyment for the rest, benefit for humanity.
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Love can never be fully explained.
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There's a point at which we make our lives, but we also take the path which is given to us.
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The measure of a man is what he does with power.
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I used to think that cyberspace was fifty years away. What I thought was fifty years away, was only ten years away. And what I thought was ten years away... it was already here. I just wasn't aware of it yet.
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As artists, we must not go down to the level of the masa; we should bring them up, intellectualize our languages, create classics out of our folk arts. We can do this if we are true to our roots and strive for excellence.
