“If Life's a stage (which is true and truly a deep philosophical truth), then may I have it as I like it to be?”

“To be able to find someone worthy of looking up to - is good. It is far better to find yourself though!”

“If silence were your best friend, it means that you have found yourself a faithful & enriching companion for life!”

“If you like to wonder about what you have done in life...know that wondering is about weighing the worth of your actions. To be able to do so would mean having the knowledge of that what constitutes action. Or even inaction. For somewhere in the realm of knowledge, you cease to be the actor or actress. Deeper within, you would realize that you never were for you could never be the actor or the actress! For you have done nothing since you can do nothing! But it is good to begin wondering in the first place. It already puts you ahead in the path of progress!”

“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.”

“To "know" is surprising since it merely means that you do know that there is so much that you do not know! Though if ignorance was bliss, it perhaps referred to the human world!”

“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.”