Andrea Hirata Quotes

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The decision to write full-time meant I couldn't afford to buy a house. A friend kindly offered me the use of his apartment in a thirty-six-story building full of newlywed couples in the southern area of Jakarta. I didn't like my working space at first, but the scenery and everything going on outside have worked their magic on me.

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

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

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

u r what u read
u r what u write

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.

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

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.

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

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

Preparation Perfect Performances

It's hard to be a minority. People look at you a different way, like you don't belong, and I don't think many people realize just how difficult it is to live as a minority. Where I come from, we learn to tolerate one another. Whether one is of Chinese descent or Malay descent, what matters is we're part of the same country, the same world.