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

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.

Such was the love of this grandson for his grandmother that two years after the death of his mother, when she herself fell gravely ill, he vowed to her that someday he would try to tell the world her life story. 'But why?' she asked humbly. 'I'm no one, just a girl from the coast' 'But you are everyone, Grandma,' the young Pramoedya told her. 'You are all the people who have ever had to fight to make this life their own.

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

I will not close my eyes, neither those in my head nor those in my soul, as the ship carries me away, along with my future, my dreams, and my beliefs. Buru Island is no happy land somewhere; it's but a way station on my journey in life—though to believe even that much will require no small measure of hope.

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

Do not underestimate the human being, who sometimes appears so simple. Even with sight as sharp as an eagle, a mind as sharp as a razor, senses more powerful than gods, hearing that can catch the music and the lamentations of life, your knowledge of humanity will never be total.