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

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.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

The world is such a marvel-it gave you trials, but if you were still and concentrated, if you tried to do the right thing, it always provided you with salvation.

Before a secret is told one can often feel the weight of it in the atmosphere.

I was a bit of an outsider in the hip-hop world because I was a scratch kid and people weren't necessarily trying to hear that all the time.

It wasnt the greatest script in the world, but not many people can say theyve played a wicked king in a swashbuckling Arthurian special-effects monster movie.

The issue is that [Saddam] has chemical weapons.

There's a fine line between audacity and idiocy.

We have much wisdom to gain by learning to understand other people's cultures and permitting ourselves to accept that there is more than one version of reality.

As my friend said that when people say the church is full of hypocrites, he says we always have room for more.

My life is unjust, but I can strive for justice. My life is unkind, but I can vote for kindness.