Jessica Hagedorn Quotes

• But I think there's a genuine joy, too, a sense that no matter what, even if my stomach's growling, I'm going to dance. That's what I want to leave people with at the end of the play. After all this, people still know how to live.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Thinking, Play, People

  47 Copy quote

• Adaptability is the simple secret of survival.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Simple, Secret, Survival

  Jessica Hagedorn (2013). “Dogeaters: A Novel”, p.13, Open Road Media

  13 Copy quote

• Don't say Fili, sister. Say Pili. In Tagalog, pili means to choose. Pino means fine. Pilipino equals 'fine choice.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Mean, Choices, Fine

  15 Copy quote

• Life is not simple, and people can't be boxed into being either heroes or villains.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Hero, Simple, People

  9 Copy quote

• Writers and scholars have emerged in recent times (some familiar, some new) to continue to challenge the notion of a literature that encompasses the world - and reaffirms our existence in it. It is a multicultural vision that embraces and includes our shrinking universe; it is a multicultural vision that the white man fears and a vision that the rest of us can celebrate.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Men, White Man, Challenges

  8 Copy quote

• There is real beauty in my eyes when I lose my mind.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Real, Eye, Mind

  4 Copy quote

• Hybridity keeps me from being rigid about most things. It has taught me to appreciate the contradictions in the world and in my life. I scavenge from the best.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Appreciate, Hybridity, World

  10 Copy quote

• Everything matters. Time is precious.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Matter, Time Is Precious

  11 Copy quote

• Becoming a mother has helped make me a tougher, stronger writer.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Mother, Stronger, Becoming

  4 Copy quote

• I don't know what issues concerning identity have helped contemporary fiction evolve to what it is now. All I know is that the range of voices that are being heard and published is a lot more diverse than when I was coming up.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Writing, Contemporary Fiction, Voice

  7 Copy quote

• I think for a lot of so-called post-colonial peoples, there's a feeling of not being quite legitimate, of not being pure enough.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Thinking, Feelings, Enough

  Interview with Kay Bonetti, www.missourireview.com. March 1, 1995.

  4 Copy quote

• We didn't have television until I was about eight years old, so it was either the movies or radio. A lot of radio drama. That was our television, you know. We had to use our imagination. So it was really those two things, and the comics, that I immersed myself in as a child.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Children, Drama, Two

  Interview with Kay Bonetti, www.english.illinois.edu.

  10 Copy quote

• My identity is linked to my grandmother, who's pure Filipino, as pure as you can probably get. And that shaped my imagination. So that's how I identify.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Grandmother, Imagination, Identity

  62 Copy quote

• [On The Philippines:] ... eighty dialects and languages are spoken; we are a fragmented nation of loyal believers, divided by blood feuds and controlled by the Church.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Blood, Church, Loyal

  Jessica Hagedorn (2013). “Dogeaters: A Novel”, p.132, Open Road Media

  7 Copy quote

• Growing up in the Philippines, I loved all kinds of movies. We had a very healthy film industry there when I was a child. It's now gotten very limited. They only make action movies and hard-core exploitation movies. Women get raped; men get shot.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Children, Growing Up, Men

  Interview with Kay Bonetti, www.missourireview.com. March 1, 1995.

  8 Copy quote

• I love writing dialogue, and I think a lot of my writing is visual and very cinematic.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Writing, Thinking, Dialogue

  8 Copy quote

• Music is very influential to my writing, as are theater and film.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Writing, Influential, Film

  4 Copy quote

• All the fabulous and fearless writers gathered here, whether they are living in Manila, the US, or elsewhere in the ever-growing Philippine diaspora, have a deep connection and abiding love for this crazy-making, intoxicating city. There's nothing like it in the world, and they know it.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Crazy, Cities, Fearless

  10 Copy quote

• It's not just NYU. There are days when I feel like I'm stranded in some upscale mall in Pasadena. Don't even get me started on the insidious transformation of Bleecker Street!

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Nyu, Transformation, Malls

  4 Copy quote

• I don't believe in sampling some Tibetan music just to make it sound groovy, but you do your homework, you understand what you're doing with it.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Believe, Sound, Sampling

  "Cultivating The Art Of the Melange". Interview with Somini Sengupta, www.nytimes.com. December 4, 1996.

  19 Copy quote

• The punk scene in NY was so gritty and nihilistic & I was like ooh I want to do that

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Want, Punk, Scene

  4 Copy quote

• I also identify as a Latin person, a person who has Latin blood.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Latin, Blood, Persons

  Interview with Kay Bonetti, www.missourireview.com. March 1, 1995.

  4 Copy quote

• I'm an underdog person, so I align myself with those who seem to be not considered valuable in polite society.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Underdog, Polite, Valuable

  Interview with Kay Bonetti, www.english.illinois.edu.

  7 Copy quote

• There were also horror shows on the radio. Very terrifying and thrilling to me as a kid. They had all these creepy sound effects. They would come on at ten o'clock at night, and I just would scare myself to death.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Kids, Night, Scary

  Interview with Kay Bonetti, www.english.illinois.edu.

  7 Copy quote

• There are certain regions in the country where the indigenous people eat dogs.

  Jessica Hagedorn

  Country, Dog, People

  4 Copy quote

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