Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Pramoedya Ananta Toerwas an Indonesian author of novels, short stories, essays, polemic and histories of his homeland and its people. His works span the colonial period, Indonesia's struggle for independence, its occupation by Japan during the Second World War, as well as the post-colonial authoritarian regimes of Sukarno and Suharto, and are infused with personal and national history. The Dutch Government imprisoned him from 1947 to 1949, the Suharto regime from 1965 to 1979...
NationalityIndonesian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth6 February 1925
CountryIndonesia
I don't follow any kind of 'isms.' If there is one, it will be Pram-ism.
Even though no one admits it, writers are leaders in their communities.
I'll do as I please. My mind is not to be imprisoned.
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.
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.
The love I knew was from books..
I came to see that man finds meaning in his existence only through the active demonstration of his human self, a cosmos comprising the entire constellation of life's factors: culture, civilization, tradition, history, ideals, facts, physical conditions, one's mental state, the ecology, and so on.
It is proper for people to have friends, friendships without self-interest. Without friends, life is too lonely.
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.
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.
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.
You must first of all think justly. Don’t sit in judgment over others when you don’t know the truth of the matter.
Life can give everything to whoever tries to understand and is willing to receive new knowledge.