Roxas Quotes

Every time I stand before a beautiful beach, its waves seem to whisper to me: If you choose the simple things and find joy in nature’s simple treasures, life and living need not be so hard.

To admit your ignorance is freeing. To say, "I don't know" is to free yourself from having to come up with a bullshit answer.

It is in the little moments that we live the longest. Everything else is existence.

I dream of a morning when Filipinos can wake up from the centuries-long sleep that took them from their past and denied them their destiny as a people.

The road to home is when we find our hearts filled with the stories of our people.

Beware! Balance rules the cosmos. It is not concerned with good or bad. You can be struck by misfortune and be buried in grief if that is what it takes to restore the imbalance you have wrought unto the world.

Unless you heard it yourself, take with a grain of salt what a person says another person said about you.

Jesus never wrote a book; never went outside his country. His only legacy was to never compromise the good. And it was more than enough for the world.

It’s just proper for old people to die. Otherwise, they’d go insane in a world too different from the one they knew.

YOU CAN TRUST YOUR LOVE ONE, BUT NOT EVERYONE AROUND THEM.

There are places I cannot visit. Places of unbearable sadness, grief, mourning. They say places are made by people. I say places are defined by the memories they conjure—the lunge of a curse, a shared and shattered history, a loved one drowned and lost in the ocean of forgetting.

Memory is all that matters in the end

The world is old and full of lessons. We will not lack for examples. We only have to look around carefully, earnestly, so we can learn and realize that success, to be genuine, must not be propelled by greed.

Hate is a very strong, pure emotion to be wasted on people you don't care about.

You will always be special to someone. Unless you grow so old, everyone you knew went ahead

A lie is more profitable than the truth. That is why we have elections.

I would have taken a bullet for you. It just never crossed my mind that you would be the one to shoot.

Writers, when they’re good, open windows to worlds held precious and priceless by the soul. It is a sad day when they leave the earth, like having the windows shut for good. Where will the world be without good writers?

27. So often, we go through our battles in private. As it was with me and with many of the women in my generation. We were taught and reared and molded to keep that stiff upper lip and to never explain in public how deeply some people have hurt us. I cannot get away from that mold. I am comfortable in it. I derive my sanity from it.

Guess life is really a road marked by crossroads. It's not the long and winding stretches that will hurt you the most. It's the crossroads. You make a bad choice and it's a tumble and a rumble before you get back on your feet again. But you'll get back on your feet. You'll find yourself. And then you'll be off to your next adventure (crossroads, I mean). In my case, I always had a safety net—my faith in God. But then, I'm more like the millions of simple folk who travel this world.

They say you start weaving clearer, sharper memories after you've been to a place at least twice. Because then the reflection is more of validation. Let the rush come to you and let your senses be flushed the first time. There will be time for reflection after you've had your fill.

The best dreams are the dreams we made come true for the world.

Fathers are the future's keepers, as it was in the beginning when the only begotten Son became Father to Man and the Great Circle of Father to Son; Son to Father began.

There is my truth. There is your truth. And there is their truth. The absolute truth is with God.

We spend our lives striving to be persons of influence and consequence, when all that is required is to consistently do good to others.

I’ve always wondered why women are expected to deny their true age. Why? To be a woman of 50 and up is a badge of triumph—a hard-earned certificate that says you survived the shallowness, the violence, the meanness, and the caprice of a male-dominated society without losing your mind!

There are those who live and die giving love, without receiving any. And those who live life just taking, never giving. So the universe gives a boon to a few lucky souls: Who they love will love them back—all their lives.

YOU CAN MAKE EVERYONE BELIEVE YOU'RE OK, BUT NOT YOURSELF

Not enough youths fighting windmills. And the old are fearful, jaded or dead. Do not ask me what to do. I am just as cowardly as you. And do not tell me it is enough to speak the truth; that it is bravery enough. Every mountain leveled to the ground, every forest burned, every man, woman, and child who lost their shanties to arsonist fires were defended to the heavens—with words.

You can change your life or not change it. It really doesn’t matter in the end. Life as humans live it is too fleeting, too incidental, too miniscule for the universe to keep forever. So just do good to others; be good, all because it makes you happy, happy beyond fame, power, and eternity.

Do you feel it? It’s a heightening of the senses, the kind that immobilizes a cat crossing the street, transfixed by the blinding headlights of a speeding car. You know you have to head for cover, run as far and as fast as your legs can carry you. But you can’t. You just have to know what’s coming—even if it kills you.

You grieve at first. And then slowly, with the yawning of the years, the disappeared gets scraped from your memory, the way your flesh can be peeled from your limbs. It's very harsh and extremely painful. But it gets done, square inch-by-square inch. Until, the skin that is your memory gets completely scarred and numbed. You live. The disappeared is detached from the dermis of remembering. And that is what is known as moving on.

I once stood on a road and found I had no friends. And I was glad. Better to have no friends than to have people claim they were your friends when they were not. It is a source of strength to come to terms with your right to be alone.

It is the kernel of truth in every story that makes its writing beautiful beyond standards.

Don't die famous. The things they will say you did and said would make you rise up in anger if you were alive.

The most difficult lesson is not being bitter—that balancing you need to do so you don't become bitter, even as you cease being gullible.

The time we were together, we were the best we can be for each other.

Today, you can pick your own news. At no time has the world been this compatible with apathy.

To forgive, you must love the world and everything in it. Anything less is hypocrisy.

No story is complete until it is written.

I firmly believe that if you pray long enough, if you wish hard enough, God will grant you at least one wish in your lifetime.

Only two things in man’s consciousness defy discussion: faith and one’s marriage.

One of the most enduring lessons I learned in my youth: Activists do not save the masses. The masses save themselves. Activists, like politicians, are just there to take credit for it.

He was a son of the revolutionary movement when he and the revolutionary movement were still pristine. It was a special time for Filipino activists—a time when a hundred flowers bloomed and a thousand thoughts contended in a movement that did not know yet the price of betrayal from within. But flowers wilt and thoughts give way to rancor with the passing of years. And so some may grieve not his passing, while others fall to the ground in tears./FOR HORACIO BOY MORALES, JR. (September 11, 1943 – February 29, 2012)

In the end, history proved the Jews correct. Across time and place, memory lives on the tenacity of a people’s resolve never to forget—not just with words—but with an endless stream of concrete actions rushing every day, every hour, every minute, every second.

Think about it: If you have saved just enough to have your own house, your own car, a modicum of income to pay for food, clothes, and a few conveniences, and your everyday responsibilities start and end only with yourself… You can afford not to do anything outside of breathing, eating, and sleeping. Time would be an endless, white blanket. Without folds and pleats or sudden rips. Monday would look like Sunday, going sans adrenaline, slow, so slow and so unnoticed. Flowing, flowing, time is flowing in phrases, in sentences, in talk exchanges of people that come as pictures and videos, appearing, disappearing, in the safe, distant walls of Facebook. Dial fast food for a pizza, pasta, a burger or a salad. Cooking is for those with entire families to feed. The sala is well appointed. A day-maid comes to clean. Quietly, quietly she dusts a glass figurine here, the flat TV there. No words, just a ho-hum and then she leaves as silently as she came. Press the shower knob and water comes as rain. A TV remote conjures news and movies and soaps. And always, always, there’s the internet for uncomplaining company. Outside, little boys and girls trudge along barefoot. Their tinny, whiny voices climb up your windowsill asking for food. You see them. They don’t see you. The same way the vote-hungry politicians, the power-mad rich, the hey-did-you-know people from newsrooms, and the perpetually angry activists don’t see you. Safely ensconced in your tower of concrete, you retreat. Uncaring and old./HOW EASY IT IS NOT TO CARE

Reality is a construct. You are what you think you are.

The battle for hearts and minds begins in the field of memory. And in that field, age has no limit.

Faith is one of only two things in mankind's consciousness that defies discussion. The other is one's marriage.

Kindness is fate’s currency for good fortune. And like all currencies, it is without value when faked.

It’s when a thought is at its frilliest that it becomes most delicious to think about in the privacy of your mind. When no one’s looking, you can be 17 again.—psyche roxas-mendoza

É roxa a minha tristeza, negra a minha amargura, e a minha alegria enfeita-se de papoilas e enrubesce à luz do sol para cantar

We bleed our sorrows dry on the chance that laughter will save what is left of our dignity

Flores envenenadas na jarra. Roxas azuis, encarnadas, atapetam o ar. Que riqueza de hospital. Nunca vi mais belas e mais perigosas. É assim então o teu segredo. Teu segredo é tão parecido contigo que nada me revela além do que já sei. E sei tão pouco como se o teu enigma fosse eu. Assim como tu és o meu.

A "knowing" public is a consenting public. We know what is really going on. Time to do something about it.

Forgetting you is like running away in a circle, each step away is another step towards.

It's hard to pretend you're OK. Especially when you're all by urself, alone. :'(

MADALI MAGING OK SA HARAP NG MINAMAHAL MO, BUT IT BECOMES EVEN WORST PAGHND MO SILA KAHARAP

Mass movements are a function of adaptation. Its pulse is change. A movement without mass is a cult. And it is in cults that stupid tyrants hold sway.

There will always be something between us, my darling, but even time can’t tell if it’s a bridge or a wall.

You don’t have to be better for the one. You don’t have to be better when you’re the one. You found someone you were enough for. And despite my best efforts, I can’t hate you for that.

Our hearts will somehow heal Before the day is done I am the one you get Before you get the one Both of us are travelers Transients of our youth I may be just a pit stop But darling, so are you

Akila está no meio disso tudo, fazendo seus exercícios com confiança e até certo charme, e seu lugar na hierarquia é óbvio mesmo sem o símbolo da faixa, um roxo escuro que só vejo em uma outra aluna. […] Aí o mestre chama a outra faixa roxa, uma menina branca e pequena com olhos fundos e escuros, e a turma toda se ajoelha enquanto Akila e ela se enfrentam. Acaba rápido. Tirando um momento em que ela cai de costas e levanta depressa, Akila é discreta, menos interessada em força e mais na precisão, e seu contato é tão leve e sem emoção que dá para perceber que ela está contando os pontos mentalmente, algo irritante para sua parceira, que é boa, mas fica tão chateada com a tranquilidade de Akila que desiste de competir.

A rapariga tinha uma mancha roxa na face esquerda. Começava na pálpebra, descia pela maçã do rosto e terminava num pingo de cor junto ao queixo. Era como se Deus tivesse brincado com o tubo de guache e, a dado momento, tivesse carregado com um pouquinho mais de força, derramando um feixe de cor na pele alva. O rapaz tinha seis dedos na mão direita. Junto ao dedo mindinho, existia, mais pequeno, um outro. Talvez Deus se tivesse entusiasmado a brincar no barro e tivesse resolvido moldar um dedo extra à sua criação. Ele deslizou a mão de seis dedos pela face esquerda dela, como um dedilhar suavíssimo nas teclas de um piano, tocando uma melodia quase inaudível, ou a espuma que sobeja numa onda rasteira e deixa um beijo tímido na areia. Ela fechou os olhos e esperou. Com a ponta dos dedos, ele desenhou a ternura naquela tela violácea, num coração cheio de amor e numa flor cujo caule terminava no canto dos lábios. Observo-os da janela, entre tragos de uma bebida. Protegiam-se da intempérie debaixo do toldo do bar. Antes de terem aparecido para se abrigarem da chuva, o anoitecer caía negro, chuvoso e triste. Naquele momento, como um fio de cor que escorrega por uma lata de tinta, de entre os seis dedos do rapaz que amavam a mancha roxa da rapariga, o amor explodiu num sorriso cor-de-rosa que coloriu os lábios dela e fez cintilar os olhos azuis dele.

It's about time you learned what real hurt feels like!

This could have been the other way around...

O que os AAs da Grande Boston tratam de forma trivial mas correta é o fato de que tanto os beijos do destino quanto suas bifas ilustram a impotência básica e pessoal de um indivíduo qualquer diante dos eventos realmente importantes da sua vida¹: i.e., quase nada de importante te acontece porque você produziu. O destino não tem bipe; o destino sempre fica ali encostadinho de capa de chuva num beco fazendo algum tipo de Psst que normalmente você nem ouve porque está correndo tanto para ou de alguma coisa importante que tentou produzir." ¹."A formulação de um Bandeira Branca, p. ex. é que 99,9% do que rola na vida da gente a bem da verdade não é problema nosso, sendo que o 1% que a gente controla consiste basicamente na opção de aceitar ou negar a nossa inevitável impotência diante dos outros 99,9%, que tipo só tentar fazer a conta disso tudo faz a testa de Don Gately ficar roxa.

The length of words used to explain something does not determine the quality of the thought. Yet, I tend to believe that the shorter one can say something, the better it is.

Seu Vivaldo trouxera flores, contribuição gratuita da funerária. Dona Gisa arrumou uma saudade-roxa entre os dedos cruzados de Vadinho. Seu Vivaldo considerou para si mesmo o absurdo do gesto: deviam colocar entre os dedos do morto uma ficha de jogo, isso sim. Uma ficha em vez da saudade-roxa, e se em lugar da música e dos risos do Carnaval se elevassem por ali perto o ruído das mesas da roleta, a voz rouquenha do crupiê, o soar das fichas, as nervosas exclamações dos jogadores, era bem possível ver-se Vadinho levantar do caixão, sacudir dos ombros sua morte, como sacudia, num gesto característico, as complicações a perseguirem-no, e encaminhar-se para depositar sua ficha no 17, seu número predileto. Que poderia ele fazer com uma saudade-roxa? Logo estaria murcha e fanada, nenhuma roleta a aceitaria.

Life is so precious, it should be shared.

I am neither brave enough to venture gladly into the abyss of the human soul, nor ambitious enough to scale the heights of mortal pride. To live simply in a place where I envy no one and no one would envy me is my happiness defined.

(...) acontecia-lhe adormecer ao relento, de cabeça encostada ao estore, com um barco que saía da barra a viajar-lhe dentro das pálpebras cansadas, e lograr desse jeito alguma espécie de sossego, até que um indício de claridade roxa, misturada com pardais, o despertava (...)

Wait. Don’t we even get a say in this?” James is supposed to be a macho, baseball player. Why is he such a whiny douche? “What? You want us to take a vote?” That

You voted!” His voice reaches volumes that I wasn’t sure a human voice could reach. Everyone, including me, jumps at the sound of it. “I’ve been on this team for four years. I was stupid enough to believe that made us friends. And now, you have the nerve to drag me in here and vote on if I’m allowed to be near you as long as I follow your rules?

In the end, class will out. So much talk about helping the poor. It's all words and class interest— in the end.

When you set man against the vastness of the cosmos, the only thing left is humility, a virtue he often discards in the heat of ambition.

as marcas que ficavam vermelhas e roxas e verdes ele escondia porque essas eram as marcas que as pessoas conseguiam ver e essas eram mais fáceis de lidar,

Lansdale had been with Roxas earlier that same day, part of the president’s press corps entourage, but about all he could find to say by way of eulogizing the fallen leader was, “now that I’ve switched to Chesterfields, he didn’t bum Camels from me as he used to do.

It’s when a thought is at its frilliest that it becomes most delicious to think about in the privacy of your mind. When no one’s looking, you can be 17 again.

Being at the top of the world also meant being alone. But it was a welcomed loneliness, a happy solitude.

How is it that dreams only came true the moment they became nightmares?

Words had this certain power; the more you said things, the realer they became. But if you don't say them, you can't address them.

If I found love in my lifetime, then it would be a blessing, but if I didn't, I no longer had the urge or need to pursue it.

They issued laws upon laws that always seemed to benefit the people a little less than it benefited their own families.

They wanted a wreck, I gave them a fortress.

I want to stab you with the broken pieces of the heart you left me, but every time I pick them up, I bleed.

Kindness is the thing I ask now To kill your longing and my wrath Don't look at me with those brown eyes My heart still lies on your behalf

I tell myself how I have worth I love myself, I do But even the greatest of me; Is a shadow of loving you

I want to take credit for the joy you give her, as if it was the joy you stole from me. But that’s not entirely true. With how quickly you replaced me, I don’t believe you’ve changed that much. It’s easier to think that the version of you that she got was the same version I kissed. The only difference… is her.

I don’t want to be happy for you but I am. Because for all the years I heard I was too much, you heard that you weren’t enough.

You are more than you think You are peace and war and sea You’re open sky and closed door And you matter to me

I did not believe in permanence until I couldn’t see a photo of me without your face in it.

Because I refuse to believe we become better by being hurt. Sometimes we just get hurt. And that's it. This mind that bloomed roses from arsenic looks pretty to you and everyone else who doesn't live in it. The roses are roses, but the arsenic is still arsenic. And when my mind comes and kills me every night... I don't care if you like my mind. I don't.

No trust, no fall, thus no hurt The hover, I know so well The recoil before the touch My fear is heavenly hell

These foggy futures We have left unplanned Is this how it ends What we never began?

So wake up, my dear darling I’m broken, can’t you see? The least of what you deserve Is asking too much of me

You being here has exposed all the deficiencies I covered in pride, all the wounds screaming for relief, all the lack I’d learned to live without. Because now I am with… I have. My greatest fear then was having nothing. Only now that I have you that I know my greatest fear… is having something to lose.

This mind that bloomed roses from arsenic looks pretty to you and everyone else who doesn't live in it.

The roses are roses, but the arsenic is still arsenic.

Is the price of success an empty heart To pour just one glass of champagne Oh this huge warm mansion of gilded art And no one to kiss in the rain