Ali Fikri Mubarok > Ali Fikri's Quotes

“.... Dan semua itu berjalan dari detik ke detik, hari ke hari. Akhirnya orang jadi biasa juga dengan keadaannya. Dan mereka, yang tidak kena kerja paksa, tidur sehari-harian, atau berjalan-jalan mengedari pelataran dalam yang sempit itu, mengelamun, berangan-angan. Ya itu pun berjalan saja dan berjalan saja. Kadang-kadang orang tak sempat menginsyafi apa sesungguhnya yang telah dialami sehari-harian. Tapi dengan pasti hidupnya telah gompal sejam demi sejam. Kadang-kadang orang tidak sempat mengenangkan hari-depannya. Orang lebih suka memikirkan hal-hal yang dekat-dekat: makan, buang air, nyanyi, mengobrol tak berkeputusan, memaki-maki, atau mengaduh dengan tiada maksud. Atau-orang memikirkan sesuatu yang jauh, yang besar, yang takkan tercapai oleh tenaga dan tangan manusia-terutama sekali manusia yang dipenjarakan.
Kemudian..
Kemudian semua berjalan saja. Berjalan saja. Berjalan saja. Juga umur manusia berjalan mendekati akhirnya. Juga balatentara kedua belah pihak berjalan mendekati keruntuhan atau kemenangannya. Dan tak ada tangan manusia yang kuasaa membatalkan proses itu ...”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Mereka Yang Dilumpuhkan

“How simple life is. It's as simple as this: you're hungry and you eat, you're full and you shit. Between eating and shitting, that's where human life is found. - (Houseboy + Maid, in Tales from Djakarta)”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Tales from Djakarta: Caricatures of Circumstances and their Human Beings

“Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep”
― Albert Camus

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“The difference between genius and stupidity is: genius has its limits.”
― Alexandre Dumas-fils

“Waktu berjalan ke Barat di waktu pagi hari matahari mengikutiku di belakang.
Aku berjalan mengikuti bayang-bayangku sendiri yang memanjang di depan.
Aku dan matahari tidak bertengkar tentang siapa di antara kami yang telah menciptakan bayang-bayang,
aku dan bayang-bayang tidak bertengkar tentang siapa di antara kami yang harus berjalan di depan.”
― Sapardi Djoko Damono

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”
― Woody Allen

“Apa gunanya ilmu kalau tidak memperluas jiwa seseorang sehingga ia berlaku seperti samudera yang menampung sampah-sampah. Apa gunanya kepandaian kalau tidak memperbesar kepribadian seseorang sehingga ia makin sanggup memahami orang lain?”
― Emha Ainun Nadjib

“Generasi kempong tidak punya waktu dan tidak memiliki tradisi untuk tahu beda antara kalimat sindiran dengan bukan sindiran. Tak tahu apa itu ironi, sarkasme, sanepan, istidraj ... Generasi kempong sangat rentan terhadap apa saja, termasuk informasi ... Tidak ada etos kerja. Tidak ada ideologi dharma, atau falya’mal ‘amalan shalihan ... Yang dipunyai hanya obsesi hasil, khayal kepemilikan dan kenikmatan.”
― Emha AInun NAdjib

“Dalam hidup kita, cuma satu yang kita punya, yaitu keberanian. Kalau tidak punya itu, lantas apa harga hidup kita ini?”
― pramoedya ananta toer

“Life can't be all that bad,' i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a long walk along the Bosphorus.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City

“There are two kind of men,' said Ka, in a didatic voice. 'The first kind does not fall in love until he's seen how the girls eats a sandwich, how she combs her hair, what sort of nonsense she cares about, why she's angry at her father, and what sort of stories people tell about her. The second type of man -- and I am in this category -- can fall in love with a woman only if he knows next to nothing about her.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“We're not stupid! We're just poor! And we have a right to insist on this distinction”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is: when I speak of writing, what comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or literary tradition, it is a person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and alone, turns inward; amid its shadows, he builds a new world with words.”
― Orhan Pamuk

“I think a lot about the poems I wasn't able to write...I masturbrated...Solitude is essentially a matter of pride; you bury yourself in your own scent. The issue is the same for all real poets. If you've been happy for too long, you become banal. By the same token, if you've been unhappy for a long time, you lose your poetic power...Happiness and poverty can only coexist for the briefest time. Afterword either happiness coarsens the poet or the poem is so true it destroys his happiness.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“If we give what we treasure most to a Being we love with all our hearts, if we can do that without expecting anything in return, then the world becomes a beautiful place.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“Painting taught literature to describe.”
― Orhan Pamuk

“To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.”
― Jacques Derrida

“With Derrida, you can hardly misread him, because he’s so obscure. Every time you say, "He says so and so," he always says, "You misunderstood me." But if you try to figure out the correct interpretation, then that’s not so easy. I once said this to Michel Foucault, who was more hostile to Derrida even than I am, and Foucault said that Derrida practiced the method of obscurantisme terroriste (terrorism of obscurantism). We were speaking French. And I said, "What the hell do you mean by that?" And he said, "He writes so obscurely you can’t tell what he’s saying, that’s the obscurantism part, and then when you criticize him, he can always say, 'You didn’t understand me; you’re an idiot.' That’s the terrorism part." And I like that. So I wrote an article about Derrida. I asked Michel if it was OK if I quoted that passage, and he said yes.”
― John R. Searle

“I believe in the value of the book, which keeps something irreplaceable, and in the necessity of fighting to secure its respect.”
― Jacques Derrida, Paper Machine

“I have forgotten my umbrella. ”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“French intellectual life has, in my opinion, been turned into something cheap and meretricious by the 'star' system. It is like Hollywood. Thus we go from one absurdity to another - Stalinism, existentialism. Lacan, Derrida - some of them obscene ( Stalinism), some simply infantile and ridiculous ( Lacan, Derrida). What is striking, however, is the pomposity and self-importance, at each stage.”
― Noam Chomsky

“In fact no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be that, in a moment of joy, one might sincerely believe that they are living that golden instant "now," even having lived such a moment before, but whatever they say, in one part of their hearts they still believe in the certainty of a happier moment to come. Because how could anyone, and particularly anyone who is still young, carry on with the belief that everything could only get worse: If a person is happy enough to think he has reached the happiest moment of his life, he will be hopeful enough to believe his future will be just as beautiful, more so.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

“Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The New Life

“Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry.”
― Jack Kerouac

“Sure baby, mañana. It was always mañana. For the next few weeks that was all I heard––mañana a lovely word and one that probably means heaven.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road