The Pretenders Quotes

“Life is always sad. That's what makes suicide so tempting because life is all that we really have and haven't. Death makes us equals, too, because the foul and the good all die. The past, the present, and the future-what escape is there from these? None-and yet sometimes we are life's happy victims.”
― F. Sionil José, The Pretenders

“I did not hesitate to tell them that I not only had the authority of facts, but that it was my conviction that our worst enemy was ourselves, our vanity, our pride and our desire for honor.”
― F. Sionil José, The Pretenders

“But you must be sure of what you want the land for. And as for your tenants, if they don't own the land, don't expect them to make sacrifices. It never works, you know. Besides, the transition shouldn't create dislocations. It isn't easy to shift from agriculture to industry.”
― F. Sionil José, The Pretenders

“All her life, she was used to being pampered, to having everything she desired, but the things that she valued were never those that could be bought but those small tokens of truth and dogged fidelity which she, herself, could not give to anyone.”
― F. Sionil José, The Pretenders