Quotes from Laksmi Pamuntjak

Amba, know that in the world I know, the dead do not sleep. They exist in the same sphere as human beings. Remember that while reincarnation may be a pillar of Hinduism and Buddhism, it is not known in Islam. Yet we in Java live with both. We are Javanese because we are both.

Sementara aku diam-diam semakin yakin makanan Aceh yang benar-benar enak mungkin hanya didapatkan di rumah orang Aceh, bukan di rumah makan

Tamu tak pernah tak dijamu di rumah orang Aceh. Dan bukan sekedar makanan kecil, tapi makanan lengkap. Nasi dan lauk-pauk.

Nadezdha Azhari dan aku adalah sampanye dan popcorn. Masing-masing tangguh berdiri sendiri, dahsyat bila berdampingan, tapi fakta metafisiknya ya itu tadi: dia sampanye, dan aku popcorn.

Sementara popcorn adalah popcorn. Ia tak pernah ditimang-timang dan disimpan secara khusus, ia tak pernah dibahas, dibikinkan lagu atau judul cerita, kecuali dalam kaitannya dengan kegiatan menonton film.

Tidak seperti sampanye, popcorn tak tahu rasanya membasahi farji, untuk lalu memenuh, menubuh, dan menciptakan buih setelah disemburkan ke dalam sebentuk wadah.

Kegunaan popcorn hanya sekali: untuk dikunyah dan ditelan. kriuk kriuk, habis.

One can always benefit from the culinary knowledge of others.

it was always the safest thing to say. I understand. In fact, it is what you say when you don't understand, don't want to understand.

it is the present that rules, and the present always changes, often so fast it can hardly be experienced.

She was the smile that sent her three girls away to school every morning.

Increasingly she realized there is no such thing as word-for-word equivalents with another language. When she translated a line, never mind an entire work, she became aware that the original ceased to be, as she had led it to a place where it could not survive in its pure form.

Yang kita dapat ketika kita menghirup udara adalah kasih sayang yang mahabesar dan yang tidak meminta kembali. Dan yang dapat ketika kita makan adalah jerih payah orang lain yang tidak kita kenal.

Kami tak suka mengeluh. Bukan karena mengeluh itu sebuah kelemahan, tapi karena kami telah mendidik diri kami untuk tak membiarkan hidup memengaruhi kami, atau kemampuan kami untuk berfungsi di dalamnya.

How is it that some people are happy and others are not? How can you make your life meaningful when you know you are unhappy? Or does meaning come with unhappiness? Is it unhappiness or is it just a feeling of emptiness? When does a feeling of emptiness become suffering? What does it mean to be able to create great works because you are suffering?

Voor mij kon liefde geen plicht zijn, ik wist alleen hoe ik van lichaam en geest kon houden. En dat betekende houden van een massa kleuren, houden van wat je het gevoel geeft dat je leeft. Het betekende ook houden van onvolmaaktheid.

think about lightly swirling the wine in my hand, as would anyone who considers herself a true wine connoisseur, or so I think, to let it breathe, to intensify its bouquet, its aroma. But I don't. This afternoon I don't want to be a connoisseur. I want to enjoy my wine with the charming naïveté of a dilettante,

Religion makes us poor judges of art.

But she was such a fighter. She refused to mope and lose her dignity. And she did this by returning to what she knew best. By getting better at it.

Hospital: warehouse of the used and the superfluous, the half-here and the half-there.

History is like a long, twisted joke. You never know when the punch line will come.

Yet every so often people dare choose a culturally unpopular name for their offspring. They do so because they may have a different take on mythology's influence in human lives, or they are prepared to challenge the notion that a name makes a person. Sometimes it simply feels right, because no other name will do. For is it not true that all stories exist to be written anew?