Malaysia Quotes

Be careful about Burma. Most people cannot remember whether it was Siam and has become Thailand, or whether it is now part of Malaysia and should be called Sri Lanka. ~ Alexander Cockburn

Whether we live in Sri Lanka or Malaysia or India, the U.K. or the U.S., we face similar issues of understanding, remembering the past that has made us and seeing the future we want. ~ Romesh Gunesekera

Indonesia is rich in natural resources. Indonesia is rich in manpower with its 103 million inhabitants - not like Malaysia with its 10 million. ~ Sukarno

An oceanic expanse of pre-dawn gray white below obscures a checkered grid of Saskatchewan, a snow plain nicked by the dark, unruly lines of woody swales. One might imagine that little is to be seen from a plane at night, but above the clouds the Milky Way is a dense, blazing arch. A full moon often lights the planet freshly, and patterns of human culture, artificially lit, are striking in ways not visible in daylight. One evening I saw the distinctive glows of cities around Delhi diffused like spiral galaxies in a continuous deck of stratus clouds far below us. In Algeria and on the Asian steppes, wind-whipped pennants of gas flared. The jungle burned in incandescent spots in Malaysia and Brazil. One clear evening at 20,000 feet over Manhattan, I could see, it seemed, every streetlight halfway to the end of Long Island. A summer lightning bolt unexpectedly revealed thousands of bright dots on the ink-black veld of the northern Transvaal: sheep. ~ Barry Lopez

It is a strange thing, looking at the sea. When it is calm, or with only gentle ripples, it gives an impression of being soft and kind. But often, on such a calm, the wind suddenly blows, thrusting the water back into angry waves. At such times, in a certain sense, one feels sorry for the sea. Never of itself offensive to others, it is all too often attacked by wind and rain, the rain falling densely upon it, shaming the beauty of its calm face with a million bouncing bubbles. Were the wind to stop blowing, the ocean, surely, would never afflict the land with any calamity, nor would any human beings suffer. ~ Tan Kok Seng

This is what you British do not understand about the French. You think you must work, work, work, work and open on Sundays and make mothers and fathers with families slave in supermarkets at three o'clock in the morning and make people leave their homes and their churches and their children and go shopping on Sundays.'
'Their shops are open on Sundays?' said Benoît in surprise.
'Yes! They make people work on Sundays! And through lunchtimes! But for what? For rubbish from China? For cheap clothes sewed by poor women in Malaysia? For why? So you can go more often to KFC and get full of fried chicken? You would rather have six bars of bad chocolate than one bar of good chocolate. Why? Why are six bad things better than one good thing? I don't understand. ~ Jenny Colgan

Government observers, keen on getting the Penan out of the valuable hardwood forests, have claimed that Penan health is poor and that they are malnourished. This is a ploy to get them settled so they can be controlled. Also, it is a source of embarrassment to the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia that in the 1980s, nomadic hunters are still roaming the jungles. This doesn't help the national image of a modern, developing country. ~ Eric Hansen

All these boundaries - Africa, Asia, Malaysia, America - are set by men. But you don't have to look at boundaries when you are looking at a man - at the character of a man. The question is: What do you stand for? Are you a follower, or are you a leader? ~ Hakeem Olajuwon

As professor of global peace studies at the International Islamic University of Malaysia I am committed to the ending of war also through criminalization of war, an approach that has not been sufficiently used in spite of the UN Charter outlawing war - with too many loopholes used buy aggressive countries. ~ Johan Galtung

The trouble with Malaysia, however, is that whenever someone criticises the administration of the country, argues against the government's policies, exposes wrongdoing, marches on the street in protest, ridicules government officials, questions accepted truths and sacred cows, or holds opinions outside of mainstream - in other words, exercises his basic right and responsibilities as a citizen - he is branded as unpatriotic, pro-opposition or, worse, asked to leave the country. ~ Brian Yap

The most spectacular UFO incident in Indonesia occurred when during the height of President Sukarno's confrontation against Malaysia, UFOs penetrated a well-defended area in Java for two weeks at a stretch, and each time were welcomed with perhaps the heaviest anti-aircraft barrage in history. ~ Cael Sanderson

I brought seaweed snacks from home,' chimed in another kid. "Seaweed got iron, right?"
'I don't think the teachers meant that kind of iron,' said Hui Ann. ~ Zen Cho

When I read that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had disappeared - a state-of-the-art Boeing 777, said to be an incredibly safe way to travel - I waited patiently for the chance to learn what happened. ~ Henry Rollins

In a world that has essentially turned away from racism, it is shocking to me that the color of the skin of the bakery owners should still matter to anyone. ~ Brian Yap

OBAMA'S FRUSTRATION WITH HIS critics boiled over during a lengthy trip to Asia in the spring of 2014. In the region, the trip was seen as another carefully designed U.S. effort to counter China. We'd go to Japan, to bring them into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - weaving together twelve Asia Pacific economies into one framework of trade rules, environmental protections, and labor rights. We'd go to South Korea and discuss ways to increase pressure on North Korea. We'd go to Malaysia, something of a swing state in Southeast Asia, which we were bringing closer through TPP. And we'd end in the Philippines, a U.S. ally that was mired in territorial disputes with China over maritime boundaries in the South China Sea. ~ Ben Rhodes

Do you always wear Malaysian imitations of Brooks Brothers blue oxford button-downs, Mr. Laney?"

Laney had looked down at his shirt, or tried to.

"Malaysia?"

"The stitch-count's dead on, but they still haven't mastered the thread-tension."

"Oh."

"Never mind. A little prototypic nerd chic could actually lend a certain frisson, around here. You could lose the tie, though. Definitely lose the tie. And keep a collection of felt-tipped pens in your pocket. Unchewed, please. Plus one of those fat flat highlighters, in a really nasty fluorescent shade."

"Are you joking?"

"Probably, Mr. Laney. May I call you Colin?"

"Yes."

She never did call him "Colin," then or ever. "You'll find that humor is essential at Slitscan, Laney. A necessary survival tool. You'll find the type that's most viable here is fairly oblique."

"How do you mean, Ms. Torrance?"

"Kathy. I mean difficult to quote effectively in a memo. Or a court of law. ~ William Gibson

The new Islamic science has been fathered by the global resurgence of orthodoxy in Muslim countries; it is not peculiar to Pakistan by any means. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia are also particularly active centres. However, it is not confined by national boundaries and is particularly to be found amongst immigrants settled in the West. It evidently provides a form of psychological defence against the continuous battering by modern science in its many manifestations. For this reason, one must not expect the phenomenon to disappear in the decades to come. ~ Pervez Hoodbhoy

I'm a fundamentalist in the true sense. That is to say, I follow the fundamentals of religion ... But for over 1,400 years people have been interpreting and re-interpreting the religion to suit their own purpose! ... These [extremist and terrorist acts] are not Islamic fundamentals any more than the Christians who burned people at the stake are fundamentalist. They are actually deviating from the teachings of the religion! ~ Mahathir Mohamad

Don't gamble the future of your children and Malaysia; think and contemplate because your vote will determine not only the future of the country but also your grandchildren. ~ Najib Razak

The first time she saw the boy across the classroom, Ah Lee knew she was in love because she tasted durian on her tongue. ~ Zen Cho

Thomas Friedman, in his best-selling book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, declared that what happened in Asia wasn't a crisis at all. "I believe globalization did us all a favor by melting down the economies of Thailand, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, and Brazil in the 1990s, because it laid bare a lot of rotten practices and institutions, ~ Naomi Klein

Even a child would think twice before touching a hot kettle once burned, but in Malaysia, we simply make new plans, and repeat the same old mistakes. The MSC, E- Village, and the Paya Indah Wetlands. ~ Brian Yap

Crush Malaysia! Indonesia may change its tactics, but our goal will remain the same. ~ Sukarno

Yes, the elections aren't free and fair. Yes, the 'first past the post' system, coupled with delineation of constituencies and gerrymandering, is a problem. ~ Brian Yap

Basically all the world's computer parts come from the same supply chain that runs from Korea, down through coastal China, over to Taiwan, and down to Malaysia. ~ Thomas Friedman

If we can increase the share of Islamic finance for the world, countries can benefit - and certainly, Malaysia can benefit from that. ~ Najib Razak

The amount of love I get from India, from Pakistan, from Asia, from Persia, Malaysia - people are just like, 'Brown boy doing it, brown boy doing it!' ~ Utkarsh Ambudkar

Love was like swallowing a cili padi whole. ~ Zen Cho

In Malaysia, where Western culture was extremely influential, I'd grown up listening to Elvis and the Beatles and watching American movies. People wanted to be like Americans. In contrast, when I got here, I saw prosperous middle-class American college students wanting to somehow join the Third World. ~ Feisal Abdul Rauf

I justified my decision to take the bus by the fact that hippies had never spent much time in Malaysia either. To put it bluntly, they weren't welcome. An official government regulation at the time banned hippies from staying in the country. It read: If you are dressed in shabby, dirty, or indecent clothes, living in temporary or makeshift shelters you will be deemed a hippie. On being deemed a hippie, your visit pass will be cancelled and you will be ordered to leave Malaysia within 24 hours, failing which you will be prosecuted under immigration laws. Furthermore, you will not be permitted to enter Malaysian again. ~ Peter Moore

Malaysia-Singapore bilateral relations can blossom beautifully if cultivated and nurtured like an orchid plant. ~ Najib Razak

I am an American citizen born in Kuwait of Egyptian parents. I grew up in Great Britain, Malaysia, and Egypt and have lived in the United States since 1965, when I was seventeen. ~ Feisal Abdul Rauf

In spite of the huge diversity in Malaysia in terms of religion, culture, race, ethnicity and so forth, we've really gone very far in developing this country. ~ Najib Razak

Malaysia is a country unlike any other: Full of promise and fragility. Its history, cultural and religious diversity make it a rich, compelling and surprising land. ~ Tariq Ramadan

In Turkey it was always 1952, in Malaysia 1937; Afghanistan was 1910 and Bolivia 1949. It is 20 years ago in the Soviet Union, 10 in Norway, five in France. It is always last year in Australia and next week in Japan. ~ Paul Theroux

Once a century, all of a certain kind of bamboo flower on the same day. Whether they are in Malaysia or in a greenhouse in Minnesota makes no difference, nor does the age or size of the plant. They flower. Some current of an inner language passes between them, through space and separation, in ways we cannot explain in our language. They are all, somehow, one plant, each with a share of communal knowledge. ~ Linda Hogan

I'm going to Malaysia to try and win a million dollars ... how exciting is that? ~ Colleen Haskell

When I came here [to Malaysia] I heard that there is a problem with the concept of pluralism whereby pluralism is understood in a very narrow way, which I think is wrong. This is not to diminish your sense of truth in what you believe but to acknowledge the fact that we live in a world where we need to deal with pluralism. It's a fact. ~ Tariq Ramadan

We're working with our neighbors Indonesia and Malaysia to fight terrorism in our own common seas. ~ Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

How do you know there's not a door to heaven in the sky between Malaysia and Vietnam? ~ Sarah Palin

Other dragons are bastards. I moved out of my mother's cave after my mother tried to rip my guts out.
Granted, I had tried to steal her Tiara of Clairvoyance. ~ Zen Cho

Truth will always come to light ...
Words; dedicated to the families of the victims- Malaysia Airlines flight MH17
Day in and day out with the light of the sun -
Night after night with the light of the moon;
Piece by piece, we will come closer to the truth. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Well they're very, very genuine concerns at present as to the status of the 800 people who are to be sent by Australia to Malaysia. There's concern about the status of asylum seekers in Malaysia generally, but there's concern about the status of the 800 to be sent. ~ Julie Bishop

Sometimes, she said, she could recognize a place just by the quality of the light. In Lisbon, the light at the end of spring leans madly over the houses, white and humid, and just a little bit salty. In Rio de Janeiro, in the season that the locals instinctively call 'autumn', and that the Europeans insist disdainfully is just a figment of their imagination, the light becomes gentler, like a shimmer of silk, sometimes accompanied by a humid grayness, which hangs over the streets, and then sinks down gently into the squares and gardens. In the drenched land of the Pantanal in Mato Grosso, really early in the morning, the blue parrots cross the sky and they shake a clear, slow light from their wings, a light that little by little settles on the waters, grows and spreads and seems to sing. In the forests of Taman Negara in Malaysia, the light is like a liquid, which sticks to your skin, and has a taste and a smell. It's noisy in Goa, and harsh. In Berlin the sun is always laughing, at least during those moments when it manages to break through the clouds, like in those ecological stickers against nuclear power. Even in the most unlikely skies, Ângela Lúcia is able to discern shines that mustn't be forgotten; until she visited Scandinavia she'd believed that in that part of the world during the winter months light was nothing but the figment of people's imagination. But no, the clouds would occasionally light up with great flashes of hope. She said this, and stood up, adopting a ~ Jose Eduardo Agualusa

If, for instance, you put in a Malay officer who's very religious and who has family ties in Malaysia in charge of a machine gun unit, that's a very tricky business. We've got to know his background ... I'm saying these things because they are real, and if I don't think that, and I think even if today the Prime Minister doesn't think carefully about this, I and my family could have a tragedy. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

We can work together to produce better footballers for both FK Sarajevo and maybe Cardiff City and maybe even to play for other clubs. We hope this will be well received by everybody and enhance good relations between Malaysia and Bosnia. ~ Vincent Tan

There's good economic progress in Malaysia. People have a lot to look forward to. ~ Najib Razak

I got to go to Malaysia, Germany, Switzerland, Madrid, America. ~ Parminder Nagra

Malaysians don't like to read. If you're reading this, you must not be liking it, or not Malaysian. ~ Brian Yap

But a woman should not marry where there is no respect. Respect is the most important thing. ~ Zen Cho

With the vague hope that it might somehow explain his dream, he took one of his old textbooks from the shelves and tried to read the chapter on lycanthropy. The book cataloged the queerly universal primitive beliefs that human beings could change into dangerous carnivorous animals. He skimmed the list of human wolves and bears and jaguars, human tigers and alligators and sharks, human cats and human leopards and human hyenas. The were-tigers of Malaysia, he read, were believed invulnerable in the transformed ~ Jack Williamson

It so happens, in Malaysia, the people who are in a way not doing as well constitute the majority of the people - the Bumiputeras. ~ Najib Razak

As an adolescent I wrote comic books, because I read lots of them, and fantasy novels set in Malaysia and Central Africa. ~ Umberto Eco

Detention without trial is history in Malaysia. ~ Najib Razak

I can speak four dialects, but none of them is fairy language. ~ Zen Cho

I grew up in Malaysia, and Bollywood is really big there. As a result, I've grown up watching a lot of Hindi movies. ~ Michelle Yeoh

The tabloids wanted to know whether the dragon was receiving benefits. The gossip magazines claimed to have found a woman who was bearing the dragon's baby. The fashion magazines did spreads on draconian style. This apparently consisted of gaunt models with sunken eyes, swathed in clouds of chiffon and arranged in awkwardly erotic positions on piles of gold coins. ~ Zen Cho

Without doubt, Malaysia is the great economic star of the Muslim world. ~ Martin Jacques

Israel is not just any small country. It is the only small country - the only country, period - whose neighbors publicly declare its very existence an affront to law, morality and religion and make its extinction an explicit , paramount national goal. Iran, Libya, and Iraq conduct foreign policies designed for the killing of Israelis and the destruction of their state. They choose their allies (Hamas, Hezbollah) and develop their weapons (suicide bombs, poison gas, anthrax, nuclear missiles) accordingly. Countries as far away as Malaysia will not allow a representative of Israel on their soil or even permit the showing of 'Schindler's List' lest it engender sympathy for Zion. ~ Charles Krauthammer

I want to do feature films. I am flying to Malaysia to be in another feature film. We will be filming that in Malaysia, the Phillipines, and back in California. ~ Thuy Trang

The trouble with Malaysia is, we don't act like we have that kind of power. ~ Brian Yap

Kuala Lumpur had a certain something… There was a sense of freedom perhaps, of anarchy even, that Singapore so sorely lacked. Perhaps it was the lack of deference to authority, the physical space, the ability to take a step back and enjoy a moment of quite that lent Kuala Lumpur its atmosphere. Singaporeans were always adding to the list of reasons each one kept to hand, in case they met a Malaysian, of why it was so much better on the island than the peninsula. They ranged from law and order to cleanliness, from clean government to good schools, and always ended on the strength of the Singaporean economy. But in the end, the Malaysian would nod as if to agree to the points made – and then shrug to indicate that they probably wouldn't trade passports, not really. And if pressed for a reason they would fall back on that old chestnut which somehow seemed to capture everything that was wrong about Singapore – but your government bans chewing gum. The nanny state and the police state all rolled into one. ~ Shamini Flint

As the leader of Southeast Asia's oldest democracy, I am always keen to share our experiences. In the half-century since independence, we have found that steady reform is the best way to secure lasting stability. It is a process that continues in Malaysia to this day. ~ Najib Razak

That race was so hard and I am very happy with the result in the end. Michelin did a great job with the tyres ? the grip on the edge was unbelievable! When I opened the throttle there was so much traction it was incredible. My team has done a great job and even if we didn't win we improved again in the World Championship. It is good to be the best Michelin finisher and the first Honda home as well. I'm confident in Malaysia that we can take revenge on Bridgestone! They did a great job and Loris rode very hard ? congratulations to them. A good battle to watch for the fans I think. ~ Max Biaggi

In Malaysia where the front end pushes so much, extra engine braking is really going to help you. ~ Sete Gibernau

I don't know if you're familiar with Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. You step outside the hotel, and you're soaking wet within 10 minutes. ~ Craig Fairbrass

Feng thought that her mother's education would give her confidence to speak up for what is right, but no amount of learning could unshackle her from society's attitude towards women, and she chose to remain an apathetic bystander. ~ Shirley Fung

By linking something to race or religion, politicians distract Malaysians from the core issue while also garnering support from those whose identities depend heavily on their racial or religious identities - meaning most Malaysians. ~ Brian Yap

There's absolutely no way that something I do on my own is going to be seen in Malaysia. ~ George Meyer

I've got a place in Portugal, which I like very much, but I've just been working in Malaysia for five weeks. My family had a chance to come over and we really loved it, particularly the island of Pangkor. ~ Ian Rush

You should never get away from where the real foundation of Formula One has been, which is Europe. Of course, there is nothing wrong with the expansion to countries like Asia, China, Malaysia. ~ Mario Andretti

I don't remember the first picture I took, but I actually found a picture of myself on a trip back to my old family home in Malaysia. I'm five years old, sitting on the floor with the family camera in my hand. It was a film camera - not a DSLR - with a fixed lens and a nice manual zoom. ~ Ren Ng

But should we garner the courage and moral will to reject once and for all the fallacy of racial difference for the ideological conceit that it is, what will be the premise of our new national history, our new national story? Where will the frontiers of the new Malaysia be? And what will the new Malaysia look like?

None of us can answer these questions for certain, for any national narrative is forever a work in progress. Nations are constructs, based on the collective imagination and imaginary of their citizens. But as a nation in the making and under construction, we should at least have the courage to admit that some of our earlier premises were wrong (if not dangerous) and that the time has come to reinvent ourselves with some degree of hindsight and collective wisdom. One of the first steps that has to be taken is to recognise and accept that much of what we have been told as the first generation of postcolonial Malaysians was false, and that these instrumental fictions were tools to mentally bind us. ~ Farish A. Noor

It was the driest season the island had ever known. The heat which had accumulated during the long days still seemed to hover over the city, stifling its inhabitants. Usually they streamed on to the water front at night, sweating, wondering, in the gustatory atmosphere, moving in clusters or striking out alone. ~ Lloyd Fernando

Magic ran in the family. Even her mother's second cousin, who was adopted, did small spells on the side. She sold these from a stall in Kota Bharu. Her main wares were various types of fruit fried in batter, but if you bought five pisang or cempedak goreng, she threw in a jampi for free. ~ Zen Cho

I thought: if I die, I hope I get reincarnated into a mosquito so I can bite that fucker kau-kau. ~ Zen Cho

I am writing this on a computer that I can't imagine living without. This is an alarming thought, the extent to which I have organised my life around a metal box full of wires (and, via the Internet, to many other metal boxes full of wires). Someone told me most of the Internet is stored in a warehouse somewhere in North Carolina. I don't know enough about technology to gauge if this is true, but it made me realise how little I actually understand about the world I inhabit. The world of Dr Wong's childhood was significantly smaller than mine, but he understood every square inch of it. ~ Jeremy Tiang

I'd been traveling in Asia long enough to know that monkeys there are nothing like their trombone-playing, tambourine-banging cousins I'd seen on TV as a kid.

Free-living Asian primates possess a characteristic I found shocking and confusing the first time I saw it: self-respect. If you make the mistake of holding the gaze of a street monkey in India, Nepal, or Malaysia, you'll find you're facing a belligerently intelligent creature whose expression says, with a Robert DeNiro–like scowl, "What the hell are you looking at? You wanna piece of me?"

Forget about putting one of these guys in a little red vest. ~ Christopher Ryan

My grandfather was originally from the south of China before he emigrated to Malaysia pre-World War II. And I wanted to learn more about the history of the country of my ancestors. I knew I wanted a narrative set in contemporary Beijing. I was really interested in the effect of the rapid social and economic change on ordinary citizens in China. ~ Susan Barker