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

Humankind is able to create new conditions, a new reality. We are not fated to swim forever among the realities that are here now. ... Everything that is worthwhile in human civilization has not only originated from but has been inspired by dreams, by imagination.

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

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.

Every book that is banned is a badge of honor.

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

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