“At nineteen Rimbaud reminded us To despair: there was nothing more to do,Hell was closed for all seasons,And for all practical purposes it wasAll burnt out. ...At nineteenAll our vanity sobered into desperate awe:We drank our beer, and cursed Rimbaud.”

“Humikab ang dagat na parang leonmasarap sanang tumalon peroBAWAL MAGTAPON NG BASURAsabi ng alon.”

“Our young people think about nothing more than love affairs and pleasure. They spend more time attempting to seduce and dishonor young women than in thinking about their country's welfare. Our women, in order to take care of the house and family of God, forget their own. Our men limit their activities to vice and their heroics to shameful acts. Children wake up in a fog of routine, adolescents live out their best years without ideals, and their elders are sterile, and only serve to corrupt our young people by their example.”

“You want to know, companions of my youth,How much has changed the wild but shy young poetForever writing last poem after last poem;You hear he’s dark as earth, barefoot,A turban round his head, a bolo at his side,His ballpen blown up to a long-barreled gun:Deeper still the struggling change inside.”

“We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge. Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution. But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. ”

“We've all had our moments of weakness, and if we manage to get through today without any, we'll be sure to have some tomorrow.”

“Sisa shut up the cabin and covered the few embers with ash so they wouldn’t go out, as people do with their deepest feelings: cover them with life’s ashes, which they call “indifference,” so they don’t go out completely as a result of day-to-day interaction with our peers.”