Pramoedya Ananta Toer Quotes

Life can give everything to whoever tries to understand and is willing to receive new knowledge.

An educated person must learn to act justly, beginning, first of all, with his thoughts, then later in his deeds. That is what it means to be educated.

It's proper that people have friends, friendships without self-interest. Without friends, life is too lonely.

You must first of all think justly. Don’t sit in judgment over others when you don’t know the truth of the matter.

My words, my writing, my actions—these have never been for myself alone, either directly or indirectly. There is no such thing as an artist who creates art only for himself. That is masturbation.

Let us see whether it is the New Order or me who will be the loser before Indonesian history. I have won. The New Order has fallen and my writings have been translated into 40 languages.

Painting is literature in colors. Literature is painting in language.

The love I knew was from books.

Every book that is banned is a badge of honor.

I'll do as I please. My mind is not to be imprisoned.

The fracture of pencil still useful, but the fracture of soul, we couldn't use it, Mister.

I don't follow any kind of 'isms.' If there is one, it will be Pram-ism.

At the beginning of all growth, everything imitates.

I did not succeed in everything I did. And even where it did seem I was succeeding it was not always the case. The human heart has a million facets.

Every award for me is important because it means a slap against militarism and fascism in Indonesia.

I happen to be pretty productive when I am in jail. When you are in jail, you have to spend more time with yourself.

Even though no one admits it, writers are leaders in their communities.

A mother knows what her child's gone through, even if she didn't see it herself.

Capital dictates the fate of humanity.

I don't write to give joy to readers but to give them a conscience.

Pity is the feeling of well-intentioned people who are unable to act.

Every good teaching may still end up producing evil bandits who have no principles whatsoever, an outcome even more likely when the teacher is also a bandit.

As hard as my life has been I have no desire for revenge. If I wish for anything it is for all the things that have been stolen from my life to be returned to me.

There is at least one advantage to being an Indonesian citizen: With this country's expanse of land and even greater expanse of sea, it's not difficult finding space for one's grave.

People must be just and fair, starting with what they thought.

But I couldn't stop there. The call of adventure was much stronger and more inviting.

People are raised to believe that happiness is the land to which they are destined to travel. But that belief, which one so easily accepts as true, might just as well be a mirage.

It is proper for people to have friends, friendships without self-interest. Without friends, life is too lonely.

The love I knew was from books..

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