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Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official QUOTES

Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official QUOTES

1 " The world died in a fit of coughing, in a series of painful, breathless gasps, in a tragic symphony of wheezing and whooping. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

2 " The Nameless, Manila, Filipino, Philippines, speculative fiction, short story, diaspora "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

3 " We had everything before us, we had nothing before us, according to Charles Dickens in whose nest of words I grew up, and so, as rain filled the drains, flooded the streets, inundated the city, my great-great-great-great-grandmother and her community were driven skyward, gasping for air from the underworld. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

4 " All I want are little changes, like uniforms for the garbage collectors, or masks or gloves. Gloves, especially! I cringe seeing them smoking with their bare hands after handling all that filth. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

5 " If I were poor, I’d have more use in this world. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

6 " I hate it when they mistake poverty for lack of character. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

7 " I am almost thirty, never been in love, at least not enough to stay in love through the foul moods, the oppressive silences, the subjugation, the acquiescence, the petty fights, the nagging questions, all the other complications that tend to get factored into a relationship once it stews in time, simmering to a boil. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

8 " With Mindy, I could be the man I wish I were, the man I doubt I could ever be, the man I wish I could take a pill to become. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

9 " No, not really, not to change it, not to forget it, or rewrite it, but to remember it with caution so it is not too harmful to keep in mind. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

10 " He has killed me since he married me. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

11 " And yet—and yet—she enchants me, intrigues me, draws me like sin to hellfire.
The infernal regions in the hollow between her breasts, wet and warm, dark and dense, offers delicious emptiness, captivating, overpowering, like the bottom of a well, the abyss beneath a hanging bridge on a dreary, gloomy day when all hope is gone and death is like the serpent in Eden. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

12 " Until you have trains or planes or buses that arrive or depart as scheduled, I don’t think you can ever move forward or even move at all "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

13 " Anton does not have a need to give our home a touch of anything British. This British man living in this house, with his blind devotion to—his love affair with—not the Orient, but his idea of the Orient, colored by its history, its culture, its underdog-now-having-its-revenge role in world affairs, is all the British this house ever needs. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

14 " Like the conquistadores of my cultural history, Anton took me into his arms, along with everything I represented, including my dark skin, what he called my 'Japanese eyes,' and colonized me... "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

15 " I’m afraid your memories of me are unfair. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

16 " I turned anti-American. I joined the European chorus of disdain for America. And because, like many other Filipinos, including practically every Philippine president from the time of Emilio Aguinaldo, my father was a true disciple of the Great American Dream, I turned against him, too, as I thumbed my nose at the Americanization of the world. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

17 " Here in Greece, I am now surrounded by ancient memories in slabs of stone, cold and lifeless and enduring, but where I grew up, my memories could have been warm as a toast, fluffy as freshly baked muffins, and as homey as the smell of bread wafting from the ovens. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

18 " He knew this was bound to happen but he kept himself at a safe distance, though he saw it come in every possible form, in trees felled to make way for new streets or cities, in chemicals that mimicked the human cells to invade the body, in every huff and puff of a CO2-emitting vehicle. What about the evil armies raised in the robotics classes of kindergarteners? What about the fake food with which the children had been fed? What about the devil winning the people’s vote on a ticket of broken promises, empty threats, and outright lies and a mission to send them straight to hell? "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

19 " But politics has no space in Rob’s mind right now or ever. Neither do his migrant roots nor does the Philippines, with which his parents maintain a sentimental bond and to which, while he was growing up, they tried to endear him, speaking to him in a mix of Tagalog and Bicolano, of which he remembers not a word, except Mabuhay and magayon, salamat, too, and taking him as often as they could on vacations to famous Philippine beaches, fiestas, and other sites, including Christmas in Manila. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official

20 " It should be nice to give her that kiss on New Year's Eve, but Patrice is married—to her second husband. Too much fish in the sea to bother with this one, at least not tonight. "

― A.A. Patawaran , Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official