Tree Quotes

“I wish I could be honest and true, but truth as I see it is not something abstract, a pious generality---It is justice at work, righteous, demanding, disciplined, sincere and unswerving; otherwise, it is not, it cannot be truth at all.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“A Man's suicide is the ultimate violence he can fling against the granite circumstance he could not vanquish. Its a lonely and desperate act of supreme courage, not weakness. But it is also an admission of total failure, and the destruction of the self is the end of one person's struggle, an end where from there would be no rebirth or resurrection-nothing but the blackness, the impenetrable muck the hides everything, sometimes even the reason for death itself.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“So honesty then and service are rewarded by banishment and people sell themselves without so much ado because they have no beliefs--only a price.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“In the end, the satisfaction which all of us seek, it seems, can come only from our discovering that we really have molded our life into whatever we want it to be.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“But when a person commits suicide, he does not do violence only to himself; he inflicts death upon those whom he least considered would be so afflicted.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“Who then lives? Who then triumphs when all others have succumbed?”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“But like my father, I have not done anything. I could not, because I am me, because I died long ago.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“I would like to see all this as a big joke that is being played upon us, but I have seen what was wrought in the past--the men who were destroyed without their being lifted from the dungheap of poverty, without recourse to justice.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“When I see justice sold to the highest bidder I remember Tio Baldo and how he had lost. So honesty then and service are rewarded by banishment and people sell themselves without so much ado because they have no beliefs--only a price.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“I think that I was born on a day God was fast asleep. And whatever happened after my birth was nothing but dreamless ignorance.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“Now listen...You are young and you don't know many things, but do remember this: you are alone in this earth. Alone. You must act for yourself and no other. Kindness is not appreciated anymore, nor friendship. Think of yourself before you think of others. It's a cruel world and you have to be hard and cruel, too. They will strangle you if you don't strangle them first. Trust no one but your judgment--and even then, don't trust too much.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“There is nothing like the land you belong to claiming you back. But everywhere the earth is the same.
-Old David”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“Hunger precipitated despair.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“Why do you butcher your carabao and feed a throng because your son is getting a wife?" Father always blustered to them who come asking for loans. But always, in the end, the tenants got the money--what they needed for a "decent" funeral, a baptism, a wedding. And as their debts piled up, they promised, "Next harvest will be good...”
― F. Sionil José, Tree

“It is easy to forgive a person his faults when he is dead because in death, he atones for his sins somewhat before the eyes of people who are still living and who have yet to add more on the parchment where their sins are listed.”
― F. Sionil José, Tree