“Petal, like a persistent song phrase, like a few stubborn lines of verse memorized in childhood. The needle was stuck.”

“But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography.”

“Before the conquest, the Filipinos had a literature written in characters of their own, and its manifestation in verse constituted of maxims, proverbs, boat-songs, nuptial-songs, war songs, love-songs, and the like.”

“It started when i heard your song of love
Pouring down like honey from above
I started to spin, i started to move
Just like a needle that is sticking through the same old groove”

“To this generation I would say:
Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.”

“Her body was wrapped in shadows like moth wings, like rose-petals.”

“Between childhood, boyhood, adolescence and manhood (maturity) there should be sharp lines drawn with tests, deaths, feats, rites, stories, songs, and judgments.”

“He who must search a haystack for a needle is likely to end up with the attitude that the needle is not worth the search.”

“I decided a handful of years ago that I just want to write songs that you can understand as soon as you put the record on. There’s no need to veil what’s happening in the song the way I used to.
My goal as a songwriter now is to simply write some memorable turns of phrase.”

“Of all my verse, like not a single line;
But like my title, for it is not mine.
That title from a better man I stole:
Ah, how much better, had I stol'n the whole!”