Quotes from Laksmi Pamuntjak

Astounding how similar the face of freedom can be to the face of fascism.

Ia tak mengerti kenapa banyak sekali teman-temannya buang-buang uang begitu banyak untuk membeli aneka beha dan celana dalam ajaib yang toh akan ditanggalkan juga dalam waktu sekejab.

Akhir-akhir ini Hadi Mintarso tampak kuyu dan lesu seperti ban kempes, apalagi semenjak kalah nyaleg. Badannya pun semakin ciut, seolah politik semacam pil diet ajaib yang baru terbukti ampuh jika kita kalah sebelum berlaga.

Does Bhisma care about women and their fate? Do all women have to be fierce warriors and die like men, as Rosa Luxemburg did, to earn his respect? Does he care about the mountains, behind which every day the sun rises and sets, about life on the side of the road, about the color of twilight in certain clear afternoons, so beautiful it is almost unendurable?

His intellect might be a weapon, his worldliness his shield.

We cooks have the highest intelligence, and we have opinions about everything. Why? Because the qualities we have come to know as 'taste' and 'a deft hand in the kitchen' are essentially courage, and that is the prerequisite to alchemy: a set of nerves so steely and seasoned, which always know how much garlic, how many chilis, how much salt and pepper to put into each dish, at any second, in any situation, in any city, for every mouth, for every type of hunger.

Menurut suamimu sang cendekiawan, "normal" adalah konsep yang relatif baru, yang lahir dari gagasan ilmuwan Belgia, Adolfe Quitelet, pada awal abad ke-19, tentang "manusia rata-rata

How does it feel living life every day with such attractive faces in a place where women are forced to take responsibility even for the worst outcomes that spring from other people's lusts?

Aruna...has long decided that decided she will only spend what little time she has on things that make her happy

Aruna...has long decided that she will only spend what little time she has on things that make her happy.

For years I have lived with words and terms that divide people, words that mark who is to be exterminated and who is to be spared.

Families and neighbors started to avoid, rebuke, or repel each other, just because they didn't share the same political beliefs or choose the same party.

Nuniek knew only too well when to stop, when to heed her husband's change of voice. She knew that you had to feel your way through a marriage, not unlike politics. Just when you thought your relationship with your husband was firmly in place, the tables began, ever so slightly and unfathomably, to turn.

How can you make your life meaningful when you know you are unhappy?

She would stay like that, quiet and smiling, while her husband patiently, bigheartedly, closed the discussion, as men of wisdom often did with their wives.

Ya, Kahyangan memang tak adil. Atau bisa adil dalam ketakadilan. Kita bisa mengeluh, mengejek, memaki-maki, memohon, mengelabui, menghujat, berbaik-baik, berteman, bahkan bercinta dengan para dewa, tapi kita telah belajar untuk tidak mengharapkan lebih banyak lagi dari uluran "niat baik" mereka.

I know something about responsibility. Just don't ask me about politics.

Politics revolved solely around the presidential palace, and every day there were more reports of raids, persecutions, diatribes, and alerts. All heavy on judgment but scant on facts.

Sudarminto paused. He thought about what he should say if Amba had indeed read the whole Book of Centhini and, worse, the parts she was not supposed to.

She instinctively realized her father secretly admired the randy prince. There was nothing sexier, she later learned, than a man who dared design his own destiny and who made no apologies for chasing pleasure.

Tertawa bisa menunda kesangsian. Itulah efek narkotik seni. Aku akan hirup habis-habisan karena besok semuanya akan punah dan kita semua akan merasa hampa.

Being a teacher made life easier for him in so many ways; it gave him respectability and trust. But it also made life difficult because it meant that he had the wisdom of many books and was as such permitted no error of judgment.

She felt like that worst thing—a victim.

Besides, what was the use for self-pity? She always knew that beauty is more a curse than a blessing. It exalts and entraps.