All Quotes

"“Diwa is essentially, in the writing of the poem or literary work, the poet’s own mood or feeling, stance or attitude, outlook or perspective.”"

"“Therefore, diwa is basically the spring of the poem’s dynamis or power to persuade and move the reader intellectually and emotionally.”"

"“In the poet’s entire corpus, his poems constellate and converse with one another, and therefore, the reader or critic is able to comprehend the poet’s central themes or main concerns and grasp his unique place in his own country’s literary tradition.”"

"“I think of Philippine literature as an archipelago of letters because we have many languages, including English and Spanish, both of which have been assimilated over time into our various regional languages.”"

"“Tagalog, Sugbuanon, Hiligaynon, Warai, Iloco, Bicol, etc.—they are as much Filipino as that evolving Tagalog-based Filipino that we hope would eventually, through great writing from it, become truly our national language.”"

"“There, in the poetry as wrought, if one reads close and imagines well, the poet, and the scholar also, may well be his own country’s best critic and interpreter.”"

"“The real is the poem. Hence, for the poet—our figure for the writer as artist—to write is to get real.”"

"In a profound sense every man has two halves to his being: he is not one person so much as two persons trying to act in unison. I believe that in the heart of each human being there is something which I can only describe as a "child of darkness" who is equal and complementary to the more obvious "child of light." Whether we know it or not we all have within us a natural instinctive man, a dark brother, to whom we are irrevocably joined as to our own shadow. However much our conscious reason may reject him, he is there for good or ill, clamouring for recognition and awareness and a fair share of life just as the less conscious black man of Africa is struggling and clamouring for life, light and honour in our societies. I need not emphasize how the rational, calculating, acutely reasoning and determined human being that Western man has made of himself has increasingly considered this side of himself not as a brother but as an enemy, capable, with his upsurges of rich emotion and colourful impulses, of wrecking conscious man's carefully planned and closely reasoned way of existence."

"We suffer from a hubris of the mind. We have abolished superstition of the heart only to install a superstition of the intellect in its place."

"Men are never alone because that which, acknowledged or unacknowledged, dreams through them is always by their side."

"It is the not-yet in the now, The taste of fruit that does not-yet exist Hanging the blossom on the bough."

"Life is its own journey, presupposes its own change and movement, and one tries to arrest them at one's eternal peril."

"There is a way in which the collective knowledge of mankind expresses itself, for the finite individual, through mere daily living: a way in which life itself is sheer knowing."

"Africa has always walked in my mind proudly upright, an African giant among the other continents, toes well dug into the final ocean of one hemisphere, rising to its full height in the graying skies of the other; head and shoulders broad, square and enduring, making light of the bagful of blue Mediterranean slung over its back as it marches patiently through time."

"Of all man's inborn dispositions there is none more heroic than the love in him. Everything else accepts defeat and dies, but love will fight no-love every inch of the way."

"The buffalo's powerful head darkening the yellow grass, like the lion's imperative roar and the elephant's long, somnambulistic stride, has more of the quintessential Africa in it for me than any other manifestation of all the scores of animals that I know and love."

"This is the story of a journey in a great wasteland and a search for some pure remnant of the unique and almost vanished First People of my native land, the Bushmen of Africa."

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."

"By chance (to use the only phrase we have for describing one of the most significant manifestations of life)."

"The spirit of man is nomad, his blood bedouin, and love is the aboriginal tracker on the faded desert spoor of his lost self; and so I came to live my life not by conscious plan or prearranged design but as someone following the flight of a bird."

"The educating of the parents is really the education of the child: children tend to live what is unlived in the parents, so it is vital that parents should be aware of their inferior, their dark side, and should press on getting to know themselves."

"What is most threatening and destructive in human society today is the human being who is split in his own nucleus: it is the fission in the modern soul which makes nuclear fission so dangerous — he is a split atom. He has got to heal himself, make himself whole."

"Somehow we should learn to know that our problems are our most precious possessions. They are the raw materials of our salvation: no problem — no redemption."

"The man of the Kalahari is Esau and we are Jacob, and there is a great gulf between us. This sense of property, of possession that we have is utterly foreign to the Esaus of the world. We have, he is."

"There is no such thing as children’s literature."

"Literature is an affair of letters."

"Je ne suis pas un pessimiste: c'est une forme d'optimisme, selon moi, de voir aussi le mal."

"Non sono un pessimista: vedere anche il male è, a mio parere, una forma di ottimismo."

"Our Nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."

"My real name and my looks don’t have anything to do with my books. Vulnerably exposed in all my books is myself."

"We shall never understand the natural environment until we see it not as just so much air, water, and real estate, but as a living organism. Land can be healthy or sick, fertile or barren, rich or poor, lovingly nurtured or bled white. Our present attitudes and laws governing the ownership and use of land represent an abuse of the concept of private property. Land is treated like a commodity when it is in fact a trust. Not so long ago our society permitted one human being to own another — to exploit him and even work him to death and not go to jail for it. This is no longer considered acceptable behavior, either by society or by the law. Yet in America today you can murder land for private profit, as is being done, for example, on a vast scale in the southern Appalachians. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the cops. This situation is what is known in history as a "cultural lag." It has occurred because our understanding has not caught up with our technology: a familiar complaint that has become almost a cliché in reference to dramatic modern inventions like the atomic bomb. It is equally true in respect to less spectacular forms of destruction. You can kill land by skinning it alive or by by slowly poisoning it, and it is murder all the same. In the modern world, no one should have life and death control over his land any more than he does over another human being."

"You have to learn to be strong enough that even in an environment you can’t control, you remain patient. And whatever you learn here at Bahay Pag-asa, hopefully, you can apply it when you leave."

"The Church in Togo is maturing slowly but surely. Our priority is the Christian, human and spiritual formation of the faithful. All the members of the Church, clergy, religious and laity need adequate formation if they are to meet the needs of the people. Formation also includes inculturation of the faith so that our faithful do not feel they are strangers in their own Church."

"In the dry places, men begin to dream. Where the rivers run sand, there is something in man that begins to flow. West of the 98th Meridian—where it sometimes rains and it sometimes doesn't—towns, like weeds, spring up when it rains, dry up when it stops. But in a dry climate the husk of the plant remains. The stranger might find, as if preserved in amber, something of the green life that was once lived there, and the ghosts of men who have gone on to a better place. The withered towns are empty, but not uninhabited. Faces sometimes peer out from the broken windows, or whisper from the sagging balconies, as if this place—now that it is dead—had come to life. As if empty it is forever occupied."

"I focused my recollections on Schifani and spoke to the magistrates about him because, even before the attack at the Olimpico, I knew there were negotiations between the state and the Mafia. When I saw Schifani on television and in political office, it occurred to me that he used to frequent the warehouse in Brancaccio, Palermo, where Filippo Graviano would stop to hold meetings. And I surmised that Schifani could be the link in the negotiations."

"In 1997, years before I began cooperating, during an investigative interview with the then national anti-Mafia prosecutor Pierluigi Vigna and with Piero Grasso, I said, "Keep an eye on Milano 2". We were about to say goodbye and I felt I had to say something, even though I wasn’t a turncoat yet. I intended to give a hint, in a subtle way, as I had done regarding the theft of the 126 used in the Via D’Amelio massacre.[2]"

"I told Graviano that we were taking on a few deaths that weren’t ours, but he told me it was good that we were taking these deaths on, so that "those who need to move will get a move on"."

"If I have placed my life in the hands of evil, why should I not lose it for the sake of good? I ask forgiveness for the wrong I have done."

"My repentance is the culmination of a wonderful spiritual journey that began thanks to the chaplain at Ascoli Piceno prison. I found myself at a crossroads: choosing God or the Mafia."

"My mission is to restore the truth to history, and I will stop at nothing. It is my mission to honour all those who died, all that tragedy. It is my duty."

"There were, and still are, many fears about speaking out against Prime Minister Berlusconi."

"O cheiro de cravo, a cor de canela, eu vim de longe vim ver Gabriela."

"[Riferendosi al Ministro dell'Interno Antonio Brancaccio] 'St'animale... è un delinquente. (dall'intercettazione telefonica del 9 marzo 1994."

"La Costituzione vuole il magistrato in toga e non in divisa [...]. Io sono un giudice e mi rifiuto di essere un combattente anche contro la mafia, il mio compito non è quello di lottare."

"Carnevale [...] ha dichiarato in un'intervista [...] che la notte non ha bisogno di sonniferi perché, nei confronti della Legge, la sua coscienza è a posto. Ci crediamo senz'altro. Ma se si ponesse la stessa domanda nei confronti della Giustizia, mi domando se i suoi sonni sarebbero altrettanto tranquilli. E tuttavia ci rendiamo conto che questa domanda non se la porrà mai, e anzi gli sembrerà del tutto stravagante. Perché, per un magistrato italiano, la Legge con la Giustizia non ha nulla a che fare."

"Gli dissi [a Giovanni Falcone] che i mafiosi erano preoccupati perché non c'era più Carnevale. Carnevale era la nostra roccaforte in Cassazione. È incredibile che faccia ancora il giudice."

"[Sulla condanna del giudice, poi ribaltata in seguito] Un'esecuzione, una condanna ignobile, un momento di trionfo del neofascismo etico di sinistra."

"[Sull'omicidio del giornalista Mauro De Mauro] Si è sempre detto che fu rapito. Non fu rapito invece né prelevato con la forza. Non ce ne fu bisogno. De Mauro conosceva bene uno di quei tre uomini, era Emanuele D'Agostino, mafioso di Santa Maria del Gesù. Gli altri due erano Bernardo Provenzano e Stefano Giaconia. [...] Quando Emanuele D'Agostino seppe al Circolo della Stampa che De Mauro era a conoscenza del golpe, raccontò tutto a Stefano Bontate che era il suo capo. Stefano avvertì gli altri boss della Commissione, tra cui Giuseppe Di Cristina di Riesi e Pippo Calderone di Catania. Tutti volarono subito a Roma insieme a uno che chiamavano "l'avvocato", non esercitava la professione ma era laureato... Andarono a Roma per parlare con il principe Borghese, con un certo Miceli che forse era un militare e forse con un certo Maletti."

"Ci avevano assicurato che nessuno di noi sarebbe più andato al soggiorno obbligato né avrebbe più subito provvedimenti tipo la sorveglianza speciale, il nuovo governo avrebbe dato un colpo di spugna al passato... ma non tutta Cosa Nostra vedeva di buon occhio il piano dei fascisti."

"[Sull'omicidio del giornalista Mauro De Mauro] Fu ucciso perché aveva scoperto che Borghese e la mafia si erano alleati per il golpe... il giornalista si fece scappare qualcosa con uno dei tanti boss che allora frequentavano il Circolo della Stampa che era dentro il teatro Massimo. [...] Si è sempre detto che fu rapito. Non fu rapito invece né prelevato con la forza. Non ce ne fu bisogno. De Mauro conosceva bene uno di quei tre uomini, era Emanuele D'Agostino, mafioso di Santa Maria del Gesù. Gli altri due erano Bernardo Provenzano e Stefano Giaconia. [...] Quando Emanuele D'Agostino seppe al Circolo della Stampa che De Mauro era a conoscenza del golpe, raccontò tutto a Stefano Bontate che era il suo capo. Stefano avvertì gli altri boss della Commissione, tra cui Giuseppe Di Cristina di Riesi e Pippo Calderone di Catania. Tutti volarono subito a Roma insieme a uno che chiamavano "l'avvocato", non esercitava la professione ma era laureato... Andarono a Roma per parlare con il principe Borghese, con un certo Miceli [il generale Vito Miceli, capo del Sid, il Servizio informazioni difesa?] che forse era un militare e forse con un certo Maletti [il generale Gianadelio Maletti, capo dell'ufficio "D" del Sid?]... [...] Da Roma partì subito l'ordine di chiudergli la bocca... I miei amici mafiosi, quando ritornarono a Palermo, mi raccontarono che quella gente era molto preoccupata, mi dissero che avevano paura, che se fosse uscita anche la più piccola delle notizie sull'operazione che stavano preparando, loro sarebbero stati tutti arrestati."