Life Sentences: Words to Live By and Die For

By Quintin Jose V. Pastrana

A collection of well-thought passages from classic and modern literature and film, speeches and proverbs, to interviews and social-media status posts. Here, timeless voices—from Pope Francis to PSY, Angelina Jolie to Bruce Lee, as well as the Philippines' very own Jose Rizal, Grace Poe, Nick Joaquin,and Kris Aquino—will keep one company in the journey toward a truly fulfilling life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9789712730481

Book preview

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I want to thank each and all of you—family, friends, and loved ones— who helped and inspired me to cobble this book together for a stretch of almost twenty years. Your names, stars unspoken as they are beautiful—are constellations that make the understanding of this universe possible. You are in here (points to mind), in here (points to breast), and in here (this book).

Special gratitude goes to my publishers at Anvil, Karina Bolasco, Gwenn Galvez, Ani Habúlan, and Joyce Bersales; and, to Vesy Abequibiel, Nadine Holopainen, Leila Vasquez, Paolo Vasquez, Marionne Molintas, and Raena Abella, for helping transcribe, edit, and make the words and images come to life. Your patience, advice, and friendship truly turned this pipe dream into a tactile, living, and hopefully enduring form.

Most importantly, to my mother, Cynthia Vasquez Pastrana: Thank you for being a living example of a love that beggars description.

Perhaps, the best way to reciprocate is to pay it forward. Each book you and the readers take home will help fund new community education centers across the country, and a next generation of readers and leaders will be forever in your debt.

To learn how, visit http://www.librarypartners.com.

JOURNEYS

LIFE, TIME, AND DEATH

Blenheim Palace grounds, Oxfordshire. Winston Churchill ’s birthplace, and one of the best places to lose yourself for an eternal summer day.

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming Wow! What a Ride!

∼ Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalist, novelist, and contrarian

To grow old gracefully and without wrinkles, [you must] be kind to people, be humane toward them.

∼ Ishmael Bernal, film, stage and television director, actor, and screenwriter

If you are ready to die, you are ready to live.

∼ Rickson Gracie, Brazilian Jiujitsu champion and teacher

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.

∼ Jose Luis Borges, Nobel Prize winner for literature.

His short stories are intricate galaxies unto themselves.

Pray wherever and whenever. The same goes for laughing at yourself and the world.

∼ Floy Quintos, director, screenwriter, and playwright

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

∼ Walt Disney, animator and imagineer.

We all grew up in the world he brought to life.

Time is really the only capital that any human being has and the thing that he can least afford to waste or lose.

∼ Thomas Edison, inventor and entrepreneur.

Even when Tesla gets his due, his light diminishes but stays on.

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

∼ C.S. Lewis, fantasy writer, theologian, and Tolkien’s fellow Inkling.

Apart from his books, you must see the play and film Shadowlands—nothing inspires like an all-too human icon.

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

∼ Mae West, actress and screen siren

God has assigned to each of us a definite time in which to fulfill his divine plan for our soul; we have only this time and shall have no