Andrea Hirata Quotes

#1. As a writer, I can't really take days off. Writing is like creating an art. Once you stop writing, you can lose your rhythm and context, meaning that your writing may lose its power.

Andrea Hirata

#2. It took me six novels before I felt confident of my voice as a writer.

Andrea Hirata

#3. u r what u read
u r what u write

Andrea Hirata

#4. Indonesian writers are so far behind in terms of global exposure compared with the Philippines and Japanese writers.

Andrea Hirata

#5. stop dreaming is the tragedy...

Andrea Hirata

#6. One of the challenges is creating characters. I am trying to compose my sentences to express epic events happening to ordinary people.

Andrea Hirata

#7. I changed the course of my life, from the rigidity of mathematics and the corporate rhythm to a more bohemian world.

Andrea Hirata

#8. I'm a simple hillbilly. I don't like eating modern, industrialized, fast food. I grew up eating home-cooked food. So when I'm traveling abroad, like when I recently received a six-month writing fellowship to Iowa in the U.S., I like to cook my own food.

Andrea Hirata

#9. I think what matters most in literary work is the context, not the text.

Andrea Hirata

#10. From a building right in front of my windows, I can observe the speed of the sunrises and sunsets. The voices of children playing, laughing, yelling, and crying on the playground crawl up to the eighth floor, where I write. Their voices sound so innocent from a distance.

Andrea Hirata

#11. When I was a child, I saw in the news that a person from Belitung had done well in sports in Jakarta, and I just couldn't imagine that it was possible for someone from here to become famous, and it's still very isolated out here.

Andrea Hirata

#12. The old sailors who traveled Earth's seas were said to have loved the ocean. The great captains said they were married to the sea or called the sea their mistress. Modern sailors held no such fantasies about outer space. Space did not love or hate, it simply killed anything it touched.

Steven L. Kent

#13. It turns out that popularity is scary. I don't feel comfortable receiving so much attention from people; perhaps that's because I'm just a kampong boy.

Andrea Hirata

#14. I've backpacked to countries like Italy and Turkey and observed beautiful scenery, but then I realized that beauty was always very close to me. It is here in Belitung Island, where the rivers, beaches and the terrain captivate my attention most.

Andrea Hirata

#15. Preparation Perfect Performances

Andrea Hirata

#16. Happiness is actually found in simple things, such as taking my nephew around the island by bicycle or seeing the stars at night. We go to coffee shops or see airplanes land at the airport.

Andrea Hirata

#17. I am the only one who is not married among my siblings.

Andrea Hirata

#18. My story is the story of forgotten people and the voice of the voiceless.

Andrea Hirata

#19. I want to write books that can truly become a legacy and bring benefits to people.

Andrea Hirata

#20. I am thy father's spirit;
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night
And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purg'd away.

William Shakespeare

#21. The treasure of a writer is to maintain their own style.

Andrea Hirata

#22. If you look at military and intelligence positions from the 1950s, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been against American national interests.

Abdallah II Of Jordan

#23. The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.

Albert Einstein

#24. Writing is taking a risk, and it is actually fighting invisible and invincible enemies. They are over-confidence, stupidity, expectation and narcissism.

Andrea Hirata

#25. For me, faith is more about aspiration than complacency - the smug satisfaction that other people find distasteful.

Tom Hollander

#26. I'm a small-town boy who comes from a traditional family on a tiny island called Belitung. I may not know where I'm going, but I'll always know where to come home to.

Andrea Hirata

#27. I am a writer who has a policy to allocate 90 percent of my time for research and the remaining 10 percent to write.

Andrea Hirata

#28. I am a working person. I always work, study or do research for my novel. I even work on Sunday.

Andrea Hirata

#29. Voice comes from a moment beyond the alienation of culture, it is heard before there is an "I" to listen to it.

Betsy Wing

#30. Women are like tea bags.They do not know how strong they are until they get into hot water.

Eleanor Roosevelt