Jason Tanamor Quotes

“Families don’t follow tradition as much as they used to. Family is still important, but many of the customs have fallen to the wayside. Some families, though, still hold onto tradition. Good, bad, or ugly.”

“Regular people joined by a common link. Death, it affected all people, all occupations. Accountants, cooks, realtors, secretaries. A support group for all to grieve. Doctors, the unemployed, teenagers. Dying could happen to anyone.”

“Salem was beautiful and historical, but something about being continually reminded of the witch trials didn’t sit well with her. She’d fight a man wielding a machete way before fighting witch hunters.”

“People aren’t stupid. They just want to believe in others. They just want to believe that the world isn’t coming to an end. And more importantly, they just want to believe in themselves. They want to believe that they can still trust their fellow human being to do the right thing.”

“The stories, they get misconstrued as the facts aren’t really facts and the fictions aren’t really fictions. Sometimes, the people telling the stories aren’t who they appear to be. Sometimes, the voices sound the same and you never really know where they’re coming from. And sometimes, the same person just keeps telling the same story, over and over until he’s sick in the head.”

“I considered myself white, having grown up essentially American but with Filipino parents. I don’t speak with an accent and I barely speak Tagalog. So, for most of my life, I looked at the world as a ‘white’ person.”

“I’ve always looked at life through the lens of a non-Filipino.”

“Like many American born Asian-Americans, I wanted to assimilate as a child. I wanted to fit in. As I grew older, I realized that instead of fitting in, why not stand out?”

“I always wanted to be an author. I thought it was the coolest job. As a child of immigrant parents, it wasn't ever something that they promoted. They always wanted me to do something practical.”

“So the biggest lesson for me was to write what you want. People are going to have their opinions—good and bad. The reality is you’re not going to please everyone, and if you attempt to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. If anything, you can have fun doing it.”

“The most Filipino thing about me is the way I look. Having grown up essentially in American culture, for the longest time I’d identified first as an American and second as a Filipino.”