“A story is not finished, until it has taken the worst turn.”

“It is never quite safe to think we have done with life. When we imagine we have finished our story fate has a trick of turning the page and showing us yet another chapter.”

“When I write I pretend I'm telling a story to someone in the room and I don't want them to get up until I'm finished.”

“The British…used to regard foreigners as either a comic turn or a sexual menace. To learn a European language…was, at best, to seek to acquire a sort of girls’-finishing-school ornament, at worst, to capitulate feebly to the enemy.”

“For our stories are not yet finished, and perhaps will never be.”

“We can still avoid the worst consequences, we can still turn this around. But not if we continue like today. You have the resources and possibilities to change the story overnight.”

“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”

“Had I finished off France in '39, then world history would have taken another course. But then I had to wait until 1940. Then a two-front war, that was bad luck. After that, even we were broken.”

“Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin.”

“The book of Philippine history is far from finished. However, does every sentence in our country’s story need to be finished with a period?”