Glenn Ardi > Glenn's Quotes

“In the face of pain there are no heroes.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."

[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Kalian boleh maju dalam pelajaran, mungkin mencapai deretan gelar kesarjanaan apa saja, tapi tanpa mencintai sastra, kalian tinggal hanya hewan yang pandai.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer

“Pernah kudengar orang kampung bilang : sebesar-besar ampun adalah yang diminta seorang anak dari ibunya, sebesar-besar dosa adalah dosa anak kepada ibunya.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Child of All Nations

“Kami jelaskan apa sebenarnya tujuan kami. Kami katakan bahwa kami adalah manusia-manusia yang tidak percaya pada slogan. Patriotisme tidak mungkin tumbuh dari hipokrisi dan slogan-slogan. Seseorang hanya dapat mencintai sesuatu secara sehat kalau ia mengenal obyeknya. Dan mencintai tanah air Indonesia dapat ditumbuhkan dengan mengenal Indonesia bersama rakyatnya dari dekat. Pertumbuhan jiwa yang sehat dari pemuda harus berarti pula pertumbuhan fisik yang sehat. Karena itulah kami naik gunung.”
― Soe Hok Gie, Catatan Seorang Demonstran

“Saya mimpi tentang sebuah dunia dimana ulama, buruh, dan pemuda bangkit dan berkata, “stop semua kemunafikan ! Stop semua pembunuhan atas nama apapun.. dan para politisi di PBB, sibuk mengatur pengangkatan gandum, susu, dan beras buat anak-anak yang lapar di 3 benua, dan lupa akan diplomasi.

Tak ada lagi rasa benci pada siapapun, agama apapun, ras apapun, dan bangsa apapun..dan melupakan perang dan kebencian, dan hanya sibuk dengan pembangunan dunia yang lebih baik.”
― Soe Hok Gie

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“Ilmu pengetahuan, Tuan-tuan, betapa pun tingginya, dia tidak berpribadi. Sehebat-hebatnya mesin, dibikin oleh sehebat-hebat manusia dia pun tidak berpribadi. Tetapi sesederhana-sederhana cerita yang ditulis, dia mewakili pribadi individu atau malahan bisa juga bangsanya. Kan begitu Tuan Jenderal?”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Jejak Langkah

“Banyak hal dengan mudah terlupakan, seperti kita sama sekali lupa kenapa kita tidak bisa mengingatnya lagi. Sesuatu bisa begitu saja hilang dari ingatan, seperti arwah, seperti mimpi. Kita cuma bisa merasakan jejaknya pada diri kita tanpa bisa mengenalinya lagi. Kita tinggal benci, kita tinggal marah, tinggal takut, tinggal cinta. Kita tak tahu kenapa.”
― Ayu Utami, Saman

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“Bagaimana hampa bisa menyakitkan? Hampa harusnya berarti tidak ada apa-apa. Tidak ada apa-apa berarti tidak ada masalah. Termasuk rasa sakit.”
― Dee

“Seindah apa pun huruf terukir, dapatkah ia bermakna apabila tak ada jeda? Dapatkan ia dimengerti jika tak ada spasi? Bukankah kita baru bisa bergerak jika ada jarak? Dan saling menyayang bila ada ruang?”
― dee, Filosofi Kopi: Kumpulan Cerita dan Prosa Satu Dekade

“Semua perjalanan hidup adalah sinema. Bahkan lebih mengerikan. Darah adalah darah, dan tangis adalah tangis. Tak ada pemeran pengganti yang akan menanggung sakitmu.”
― Dee, Supernova: Ksatria, Puteri, dan Bintang Jatuh

“Kita telah melawan Nak, Nyo. Sebaik-baiknya, sehormat-hormatnya.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Bumi Manusia

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
― Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

“It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

“You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We're all part of the same compost heap. We're all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“I see in the fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars, advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of the history man, no purpose or place, we have no Great war, no Great depression, our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives, we've been all raised by television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won't and we're slowly learning that fact. and we're very very pissed off.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.”
― Chuck Palahniuk , Invisible Monsters

“Fuck me. I'm so tired of being me. Me beautiful. Me ugly. Blonde. Brunette. A million fucking fashion makeovers that only leave me trapped being me.
Who I was before the accident is just a story now. Everything before now, before now, before now, is just a story I carry around. I guess that would apply to anybody in the world. What I need is a new story about who I am.
What I need to do is fuck up so bad I can't save myself.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking...”
― Leo Tolstoy

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

“Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood