I treat my writing like a day job, like my main job, even if for many years I was doing other jobs to pay the bills. I worked as a copy editor. Furthermore, I was a medical guinea pig. Furthermore, I was an eBay power seller of ladies' handbags. Furthermore, I was an assistant to a bookie at the horse races. Furthermore, I bartended. Furthermore, I did anything I could to make ends meet.

— Miguel Syjuco

I used to believe authenticity could be achieved solely by describing, in our own words, one's own fragment of experience. This was of course predicated on the complete intellectual and aesthetic independence of the "I". One eventually realizes such intellectual isolationism promotes style, ego, awards. But not change.

— Miguel Syjuco

Literature is an ethical leap. It is a moral decision. A perilous exercise in constant failure. Literature should have grievances, because there are so many grievances in the world.

— Miguel Syjuco

Love and honesty don’t mix.

— Miguel Syjuco

Morality... comes at a price.

— Miguel Syjuco

Oh, how wonderfully romantic of you. Romantics are really only in love with themselves.

— Miguel Syjuco

Oh, sweetheart. What can anyone do? That's just the way things are. You really think you can change the world?

— Miguel Syjuco

Perhaps we have stopped ourselves from being invented, from self-realization, by blaming others for our worthlessness.

— Miguel Syjuco

Sometimes one waits too long for the perfect moment before snapping the picture. You never realize that you needed was to change perspective.

— Miguel Syjuco

The instant before something comes into focus is more exciting than any sharp certainty. Photography, child, is about the passing of time. Capturing is the goal of literature. Timelessness is the task of music and painting. But a good photograph holds time just as a vase holds water. The water will evaporate, and the vase becomes a memorial to it. What separates a snapshot from a masterpiece is that the latter is a metaphor of patience...

— Miguel Syjuco