Ermita Quotes

“The obscenities of this country are not girls like you. It is the poverty which is obscene, and the criminal irresponsibility of the leaders who make this poverty a deadening reality. The obscenities in this country are the places of the rich, the new hotels made at the expense of the people, the hospitals where the poor die when they get sick because they don't have the money either for medicines or services. It is only in this light that the real definition of obscenity should be made.”
― F. Sionil José, Ermita

“We read because they teach us about people, we can see ourselves in them,in their problems.And by seeing ourselves in them, we clarify ourselves, we explain ourselves to ourselves, so we can live with ourselves...”
― F. Sionil José, Ermita

“We cannot be rooted in the past forever. We must not be sentimental.”
― F. Sionil José, Ermita

“To THOSE who want to lift this nation from the dungheap of history, the past does not matter — only the present, the awareness of the deadening rot which surrounds and suffocates us, and what we must do to vanquish it.”
― F. Sionil José, Ermita