azur

“Mereka harus menerima kenyataan, bahwa untuk menjadi cerdas, mereka membutuhkan uang. Sopir angkot hanya mau mengantar ke sekolah bila dikasih uang. Guru-guru pun hanya mau mengajar jika dikasih uang.

Namun uang tidak gampang dicari. Hanya daun yang gampang dicari. Dan hanya sapi, di kandang karantina itu, yang mau dikasih daun.”
― Felix K. Nesi, Orang-Orang Oetimu

“Beauty meant that you were good. And being good meant being happy. Happiness can be defined all kinds of ways, but human beings, consciously or unconsciously, are always pulling for their own version of happiness. Even people who want to die see death as a kind of solace, and view ending their lives as the only way to make it there. Happiness is the base unit of consciousness, our single greatest motivator. Saying "I just want to be happy" trumps any other explanation. But who knows. Maybe Makiko had a more specific reason, not just some vague idea of how to make herself happy.”
― Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

“Aku sering berpikir pengorbanan adalah perbuatan yang egois. Ada kepentingan pribadi di situ. Kepentingan untuk meyakinkan diri bahwa kita adalah orang yang mulia.”
― Venerdi Handoyo, Pemetik Bintang

“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we’re thinking when they say that? We’re thinking why the fuck should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don’t say any of this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn’t matter because that’s what we’re supposed to say, to keep our nice liberal friends comfortable. It’s true. I speak from experience.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah