Quotes from The Mute's Soliloquy: a Memoir

Pramoedya Ananta Toer ·  400 pages

Rating: (761 votes)


“Hidup tanpa harapan adalah hidup yang kosong”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, quote from The Mute's Soliloquy: a Memoir


“Tidak, yang mati tidak harus bisu. Energi mereka tetap hidup melalui berbagai cara, jalan dan sarana, terutama melalui kenangan dan mulut para nyawa yang lolos dari saringannya di Buru ini. Pada suatu kali mungkin ada yang mampu mencatatnya tanpa tangannya gemetar dan tanpa membasahi kertasnya.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, quote from The Mute's Soliloquy: a Memoir


“But I couldn't stop there. The call of adventure was much stronger and more inviting.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, quote from The Mute's Soliloquy: a Memoir


“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.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, quote from The Mute's Soliloquy: a Memoir


“As hard as my life has been I have no desire for revenge. If I wish for anything it is for all the things that have been stolen from my life to be returned to me.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, quote from The Mute's Soliloquy: a Memoir



“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.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, quote from The Mute's Soliloquy: a Memoir


“People are raised to believe that happiness is the land to which they are destined to travel. But that belief, which one so easily accepts as true, might just as well be a mirage.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, quote from The Mute's Soliloquy: a Memoir


“There is at least one advantage to being an Indonesian citizen: With this country's expanse of land and even greater expanse of sea, it's not difficult finding space for one's grave.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, quote from The Mute's Soliloquy: a Memoir


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About the author

Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Born place: in Blora (on island of Java), Indonesia
Born date February 6, 1925
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