Arlene J. Chai

“ALWAYS FULL OF QUESTIONS...How many times must I tell you, better to listen than to talk. But you're always talking...asking useless things...whatever for?""Because I want to know.”

“Watch it...people who keep things inside them develop all sorts of disease...all that emotional gunk's got to find an outlet. Angry people develop cysts; stubborn people get arthritis; resentful people die of cancer.”

“We can fight fire with water provided we can get it there soon enough. But often we act when it's too late. The result is splattered in the pages of our history: bloodbaths, uprisings, revolutions, you name. And on it goes. We learn so slowly. After so many centuries, we're still a people who eat fire and drink water.' 'Why bother,then?' 'Because we have to believe that one day we'll learn.”

“Fate, no doubt, had a hand in it.”

“I was someone hungry for stories; more specifically, I was someone who craved after facts...I was, you see, at the start of this tale, a person with history. I had no story of my own. Lacking this, I developed a curiosity about other people's lives.”

“But tales like this must not be taken as truth. You must remind yourself that it is hard to tell where truth ends and a lie begins. So listen all you like, but disbelieve all you hear...You are in the city of lies.”

“Love and passion are well and good while they last, but in the end what mattes is whether you like the person you are with. Friendship and companionship matter more. They are the things that last. And if in the end we learn to be friends, I will be content.”

“Desperate people lose the thing that makes them human beings. They lose their heart. Anger and hate fill them so that they act like animals.”

“The word itself creates an empty sensation. Try saying it now. "Why?" Notice how your tongue touches nothing when you form the word with your mouth. Feel the gap, the space inside your mouth, that it creates. The air. It is a place that needs filling. It is missing an answer.”

“The past defines us as much as the present. By never knowing my past, I was never sure of who I was. Because mine was missing, I never felt whole.”

“Manila is a city of extremes. The poor are very poor and the rich very rich. They live side by side. The rich live in sprawling houses in residential subdivisions with fancy names like Green Meadows, White Plains, Corinthian Plaza, Bel Air, San Lorenzo, Magallanes and the very exclusive Forbes Park, a leafy enclave that was home to the famous Manila Polo Club. The poor are not far from sight. They live in little pockets on the periphery of these affluent subdivisions. A constant reminder to the rich that there is another side to life.”

“Every unhappy person thinks her unhappiness is unique.”