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

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.

Greatness in the last analysis is largely bravery-courage in escaping from old ideas and old standards.

Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.

To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift.

I'm a DJ. I get the party started.

Come on, when does it come to the point where your name can't come up in trade talks? Willie Mays got traded. Pedro Martinez got traded. So what? That's part of the game.

The fact that human conscience remains partially infantile throughout life is the core of human tragedy.

A nomadic society cannot experience enclosed space.

I like to keep the world, to some degree, an implied setting.

Solitude is the profoundest fact

All the dangers in our world are like a blessed wake up call. They tell us to live life NOW... not tomorrow, not when the children grow up, not when we retire... but NOW.