John Pucay > John's Quotes

“We learn our lessons through the broken shards we pick up, piece by piece, later, when everything is over and apologies are realized too late.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“I wished I was blessed with the talent of poetry, of coaxing words into a sonata of the soul where I might sing my pain, my gratitude, my meager, little happiness, into the echoes of the universe and maybe, hopefully, people who feel the same might find this song and find comfort in it and, for an inch of a moment, we'd be together; a virtual community beyond tech platforms, across space and time.

But I'm no poet.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“Rain in Metro Manila is like a love affair: Short and fleeting; or torrid and flooding with tragic casualties left in its wake.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“Online dating is not bad. Just tedious and mediocre.

It's like going to the karinderya and they've got plenty of ulam (viands) but you don't fancy any of the ulam. Or you see something you like but it's overcooked or has too much oil or too little flavor. Bland and tasteless, a drink that doesn't refresh, a meal that gorges but doesn’t sate.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“I tried running roads, hung out with road runners. But it's not for me. Being on the road means people will see you, so your outfit matters and you can't blow your nose and wipe it with your hands and brush your hands on the pavement.

It's like going to the gym. Sweat, odor, athleisure fashion, being self-conscious—none of those matter in the mountains. You'd slam your shoes across rivers and slap your ass on muddy trails and swing your dick out while running. Pee on the run because stopping to pee takes too much time. You don't bother with trivial matters.

Instead, you thank the universe you didn't fall off that cliff or your knees didn't collapse or you finished the race with only calluses, maybe a cut here and there, sore and stiff muscles, but alive and without broken bones. You're in the moment. It's more fun that way.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“Order gives birth to constants, and constants yield expectations. When two people have unprotected sex and both are fertile, and the sperm reaches the egg, the woman gets pregnant and a baby is born. There is an order to things and thus, a reasonable expectation can be made. That’s what two decades of school teach you. Do things a certain way, and you’ll get the results you want.”

She gulped her beer and sighed. “But life is different. It doesn’t work that way. And dating is the stupidest mechanism of life.”

“Why is it the stupidest?”

“Because the rules are all fucked up. You do one thing, supposedly the ‘right’ thing, and you get a different result, which is usually no result.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“Maybe that’s how it is. Some people drink, gamble, or work longer hours. Others get abortions or fuck committed people. When we’re fed up making the same mistakes, maybe we change for the better.

Become less fucked up.

Happier.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“The myth of the perfect stranger is something I learned from committed women. Every one of them seemed to hold this deep-rooted belief that someone, some stranger out there, will give her whatever she was looking for. All I had to do was fulfill that fantasy. And when we didn't stay longer than half a day together, the illusion was easy enough to maintain.

For my part, I also enjoyed playing the role. It's quite the ego boost to hear a woman, with glazed eyes and labored breathing and numb legs, tell you she's never experienced that. Meanwhile, her boyfriend or husband called in vain, ignored.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“I was taught to prioritize what's "important"; food, water, children (Being the eldest among our siblings, I was taught to watch out for the younger ones). I was taught that the important stuff wasn't shiny; it involved logistics, practicals, survival. Only the necessary stuff to get by.

Style, beauty, self-expression, affairs, superficiality — these are luxuries in my world. I could barely afford to eat lunch, much less buy clothes or get my hair styled in a salon. My family couldn't afford cable TV so I never watched MTV to learn the latest trends.

So when I started high school, I had no regard for appearances. This is how I learned, the hard way, that maturity has no place with teenagers who could afford to have fun.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“We didn't dance together. We danced our own dance, our own space. But we felt the connection. We were three people in communion with the music. The music sang and we sang back, loudly, with our bodies.

For a moment, all the superficiality of the world; all its banal cruelty, wokeness, and mundane distractions—everything faded. Our souls reverberated with the purity of music, the release of dance, and the separate yet united communion of disparate people in that single experience.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“Inside the saloon, a band of plump, middle-aged gentlemen in Stetson hats and leather jackets crooned about an Ibaloi girl from Bahong.

Like the roses of Bahong
Ambrosial and winsome
If they uproot it and bring it to Manila
They will kill it

They sang in mellow, baritone voices.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“That night, me and his girlfriend both lay in bed, silent after our round. I felt something hover in the air. An empty kind of mist, but without regret”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“I wondered why I pined for women like Kayla. Rich girls have always been out of my league as a kid, so I'm probably compensating in adulthood...

Over time, I realized it wasn't just their looks or economic status I wanted. It was the contrast. They are the people who sit comfortably in their cozy worlds and believe they are enough; that all they must do is love themselves for who they are and they shall find friendship, intimacy, love, success, and all the good things people like me must painstakingly earn and seduce for.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs

“They're the people sitting on carpeted floors in their padded, imported socks, opening presents handed to them by fate, by luck, by whatever perverse force that allowed humans to be born not equal. And I wanted sooo badly, to have a taste of those gifts through the women who opened them.”
― John Pucay, Karinderya Love Songs