“The challenge for all of us in this day and age is to distinguish between the merely surprising and the truly amazing.”

“These days when we speak of politics at all it is with indifference, anger, or "Please, could we talk about something that doesn't make us nauseous?" But there was a time when we could discuss government with hope, pride, and trust in our leaders, and that was when Corazon Aquino was president.”

“What we call the wisdom that comes with age is usually simple caution.”

“Everyone declares that love is irrational, and yet everytime this statement is proven correct, they profess amazement. They seem to assume that love will make an exception in their case. It never does.”

“I hear what many of you are saying: We don’t have the time, we are busy. Well Nobody Has Time, Everyone Is Busy. In the time it took you to read this post, your life just got a minute shorter. That is precisely why we read (and why some of us write): because life is short and finite, we want more, and literature is the distillation of all those lives we will not lead.”

“We are all the same in that we all want to be different.”

“There are certain rules to be observed when writing about our parents. We can only describe them as transparent figures with golden haloes, smiling down at us from heaven, large flag billowing in the breeze optional, just before the end credits roll.”