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
Every good teaching may still end up producing evil bandits who have no principles whatsoever, an outcome even more likely when the teacher is also a bandit.
I don't write to give joy to readers but to give them a conscience.
Capital dictates the fate of humanity.
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.
Painting is literature in colors. Literature is painting in language.
I did not succeed in everything I did. And even where it did seem I was succeeding it was not always the case. The human heart has a million facets.
The fracture of pencil still useful, but the fracture of soul, we couldn't use it, Mister.
I happen to be pretty productive when I am in jail. When you are in jail, you have to spend more time with yourself.
At the beginning of all growth, everything imitates.
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 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.