More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
He convinced us that life could be happy even in poverty, so long as, with spirit, one gave rather than took as much as one could.
They were our unsung heroes, a prince and princess of kindness, and wells of knowledge in a forsaken dry field.
Lesson number three: If you are gorgeous, you will not lead a peaceful life.
He somehow skipped the identity-searching phase that usually leaves people doubting themselves until they are older. There are those who never find their own identity and go through life as someone else.
And for the first time, I learned that fate could treat humankind very terribly, and that love could be so blind.
Studying was entertainment that made him forget life’s hardships. For him, books were like water from a sacred well in Mecca’s mosque, renewing his strength to pedal against the wind day after day.
Just as stupidity often goes unrealized, some people are often unaware that they have been chosen, destined by God, to be betrothed to knowledge.
If the heart is not envious of one with knowledge, then it can be illuminated by the rays of enlightenment. Like stupidity, intelligence is contagious.
His superiority didn’t threaten those around him, his brilliance didn’t cause jealousy, and his greatness didn’t give off the slightest hint of arrogance. He was a breath of fresh air for our school, which had been ignored for so long.
Lintang’s family was like the epitome of poverty for Malay and Indonesian traditional fishermen. They carried that misery in their hearts from generation to generation. They swallowed the bitterness of empty expectations for the future and their doubts about their children’s education. This misery, of the have-nots, couldn’t be heard by anyone’s ears, not the haves’ nor the state’s. But today the misery briefly disappeared for one family, covered by the near-endless marks of ten in the report card of their extraordinary young son.
The world may have been depressed, but the -ber months were glorious for us. The rainy season was a festival held for Malay children, for us, by nature itself.
