Randy Ribay > Quotes

“I will try not to judge because I have no idea what you were struggling with in your heart, what complicated your soul. None of us are just one thing, I guess.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“It strikes me that I cannot claim this country’s serene coves and sun-soaked beaches without also claiming its poverty, its problems, its history. To say that any aspect of it is part of me is to say that all of it is part of me.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“Sometimes I feel like growing up is slowly peeling back these layers of lies.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“It's a sad thing when you map the borders of a friendship and find it's a narrower country than expected.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“We all have the terrible and amazing power to hurt and help, to harm and heal. We all do both throughout our lives. That’s the way it is. I suppose we just go on and do the best we can and try to do more good than bad using our time in Earth.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“That's not how stories work, is it? They are shifting things that re-form with each new telling, transform with each new teller. Less solid, and more liquid taking the shape of its container.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“You saw my pain for what it was, recognized it as if it were your own, and gave me the love I needed to heal. I will never forget that.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“I expected the truth to illuminate, to resurrect. Not to ruin.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“It’s easy to romanticize a place when it’s far away,” he goes on, making this officially the most I’ve heard him speak at once in a long time. “Filipino Americans have a tendency to do that. Even me. Sometimes I miss it so much. The beaches. The water. The rice paddies. The carabao. The food. Most of all, my family.” He closes his eyes, and I wonder if he’s imagining himself there right now. After a few moments, he opens them again, but he stares at his hands. “But as many good things as there are, there are many bad things, things not so easy to see from far away. When you are close, though, they are sometimes all you see.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“My family, myself, this world — all of us are flawed. But flawed doesn’t mean hopeless. It doesn’t mean forsaken. It doesn’t mean lost.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“When you grow up in a country like the United States, you’re constantly told it’s the greatest place in the world. But then you go somewhere else one day and find out that bathroom doors like this exist, and you start to question everything.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“How do you mourn someone you already let slip away? Are you even allowed to?”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“People are sick sand starving to death in our country, in our streets, and nobody cares. They worry instead about grades and popularity and money and trying to go to America. I don't want to be another one of those people who just pretends like they don't know about the suffering, like they don't see it every single day, like they don't walk past it on their way to school or work.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“But there are good things I can hold on to and there are other things I have the power to change. My family, myself, this world—all of us are flawed. But flawed doesn’t mean hopeless. It doesn’t mean forsaken. It doesn’t mean lost. We are not doomed to suffer things as they are, silent and alone. We do not have to leave questions and letters and lives unanswered. We have more power and potential than we know if we would only speak, if we would only listen.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“What if I don’t have a clue what I want to do?” I ask.
“It takes time, I think. Follow your interests. Develop your strengths. Stay open to trying new things.” She hesitates, then adds, “Maybe you haven’t developed a passion yet because you’ve spent your entire life doing what others wanted you to do.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“It was like he used all his compassion on strangers and ran out by the time he came home.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“Fuck those people who say being born somewhere doesn’t count if you didn’t grow up there or because half your ancestors are from somewhere else. Fuck anyone who tries to tell you who you are and where you belong.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“If we are to be more than what we have been, there's so much that we need to say. Salvation through honesty, I guess.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“What is the point, you know? People are sick and starving to death in our country, in our streets, and nobody cares.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“..., his death tallied as an improvement to society.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“But, it seems to me that there are so many older than us who are able to take care of those in need. If everyone did a little bit, then everybody would be okay, I think. Instead, most people do nothing. And that is the problem.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“None of us are just one thing, I guess. None of us. We all have the terrible and amazing power to hurt and help, to harm and heal. We all do both throughout our lives. That's the way it is.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“It’s easy to romanticize a place when it’s far away. Filipino Americans have a tendency to do that. Even me. Sometimes I miss it so much. The beaches. The water. The rice paddies. The carabao. The food. Most of all, my family.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“I thought of the sermon we had just heard at Mass that morning. It was about the Good Samaritan. You know the one? I think everyone does. Or, at least, everyone has heard it. Every time I do, I think, surely, if I were in that situation I would be like the Samaritan and help the man in need. But how many times have I instead walked past?”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“No matter the source, most follow the same flow: They describe the drug and corruption problems, Duterte’s solution, and the mounting body count. Few include the victims’ full names. Most suggest that these killings are crimes against humanity, including a note about the international community’s condemnation—but inaction.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“She curses under her breath. It must be Tagalog because I catch, “mga lalaki,” the phrase for “men,” somewhere in there.

“Hey,” I start to protest. “We’re not all—“

“Stop,” Mia cuts me off. “Don’t make it about you. Just listen.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“Maybe he was reaching out to me through those words, and I let him slip away. I stayed silent. If I had written to him more often, been more honest, would it have helped him work through some of his problems so he wouldn’t have run away from home? Maybe if I tried to find him, I would have. Maybe he wouldn’t have become an addict if someone were there for him.

Maybe he wouldn’t have been killed in the street by the police, his death tallied as an improvement to society.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“Like a tree in the wind, he will bend before the strength of my conviction.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“It’s the photos that hit me the hardest, though. A woman cradling her husband’s limp body. A crowd looking on, emotionless, as police shine a flashlight on a woman’s bloodied corpse. A couple, half on the ground and half tangled in their moped, their blank faces turned toward the camera and sprays of blood on the pavement behind their heads. Sisters gathered around their baby brother’s body lying in its small casket. A body with its head covered in a dirty cloth left in a pile of garbage on the side of the street. Grayish-green corpses stacked like firewood in an improvised morgue. There’s even a short video of grainy security cam footage in which a masked motorcyclist pulls up next to a man in an alleyway, shoots him point-blank in the side of the head, then drives away. In high definition, I see the victims’ wounds, their oddly twisted limbs, their blood and brain matter sprayed across familiar-looking streets. In every dead body, I see Jun. I want to look away. But I don’t. I need to know. I need to see it. These photographers didn’t want to water it down. They wanted the audience to confront the reality, to feel the pain that’s been numbed by a headline culture.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing

“When you’re a kid, they lie and say you did a great job in a game even if you sucked. Then you grow up a bit and your mom and dad lie to you about how strong their relationship is and how much they love each other after they have a big fight. Then you grow up a bit more and they tell you the lie that life is as simple as studying hard, getting into a good college, and finding a decent job. Sometimes I feel like growing up is slowly peeling back these layers of lies.”
― Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing