Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of prose, and the art of the narrative.

When I wake up every morning, I thank God for the new day.

November is auspicious in so many parts of the country: the rice harvest is already in, the weather starts to cool, and the festive glow which precedes Christmas has began to brighten the landscape.

I have tried to be very rational, although I know love and hate are not rational and explained feelings.

Language as a communication tool is the primary element from which literature is created. Even in pre-literate societies, it exists as songs, riddles, or epics that are chanted.

All dictators, the rich and famous, to the lowest security guard who holds a gun, easily forget that power is transitory.

I have always admired teachers because teaching, like the priesthood, medicine and writing, is a vocation. You don't become a teacher because you want wealth. It is the same with writing.

The Japanese bureaucracy is unique. It is also very powerful, although it is now the object of so much criticism. Many of Japan's brightest made it a pillar of strength and continuity.

We are shallow because our media are so horribly shallow. Every morning, I peruse the papers, and there is so little to read in them. It is the same with radio - all that noise, that artifice.

We are shallow because we are 'mayabang, ' ego driven, and do not have the humility to understand that we are only human, much too human to mistake knowledge for wisdom.

Poetry is emotion, passion, love, grief - everything that is human. It is not for zombies by zombies.

Leave him with his God. I’m sure He’s as hard and unforgiving as Cain is. I don’t want to know about Cain’s God. If he is anything to be guided by, I’d rather be an atheist, thank you.

How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word.

Nature never said to me: Do not be poor still less did she say: Be rich her cry to me was always: Be independent.

[O]ne of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened before.

The uneven distribution of wealth in the world is due to the uneven distribution of capitalism.

Jack was out kissing babies while I was out passing bills. Someone had to tend the store.

The problem with a lot of Chinese is that they put up divisions between Taiwanese, Hong Kong natives, mainlanders. We are never united. I really hope that the Chinese can be more united.

Human beings are millions of things in one day.

God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail.

The world is itself but a larger prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution.