Retno

“Kadang-kadang orang membaca buku supaya dikira pintar. Lalu mereka membaca buku sastra terkenal, buku yang mendapat penghargaan. Dan, meskipun mereka nggak menyukainya, mereka bilang sebaliknya karena ingin dianggap bisa memahami pemikiran sastrawan kelas atas. Ini adalah hal bodoh. Jangan pernah membaca karena ingin dianggap pintar; bacalah karena kamu mau membaca, dan dengan sendirinya kamu akan jadi pintar.”
― Ziggy Zezsyazeoviennazabrizkie, Jakarta Sebelum Pagi

“Pray.” “For what?” I asked. “That our house will never be broken into again?” “No. What happens to things is not important. Pray that your heart will be able to endure whatever happens to you in the future—your heart must continue to believe that the events in this world are not the be-all and end-all but simply transient unimportant variables. Beyond the everyday ins and outs of our lives, there is a greater purpose—a reason. Perhaps we don’t yet see or understand the reason—maybe our human minds are incapable of understanding fully—yet it all leads us to something greater nonetheless.”
― Matthew Quick, The Good Luck of Right Now

“Why do you need someone else to tell you what you are? Why can't you just write for the sake of writing? You don't have to be famous to do those things.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy

“Does this story have a happy ending?" Bobby asked.
"There is no such thing as an ending," she said. "Good things come out of bad things and bad things come out of good things, but it always continues. It's as in life. Books are life. There is just the part you read. They start before that. They finish after it. Everything carries on forever. You are only in it for those pages, for a tiny window of time.”
― David Whitehouse