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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.