Writer

When you have a foreign invasion - in this case by the Indonesian army - writers, intellectuals, newspapers and magazines are the first targets of repression.

Literature for me isn't a workaday job, but something which involves desires, dreams and fantasy.

As a writer, I've always been interested in others.

Doubts are like stains on a shirt. I like shirts with stains, because when I'm given a shirt that's too clean, one that's completely white, I immediately start having doubts.

Ini adalah tugas para intelektual dan penulis untuk meragukan kesempurnaan.

I live quietly at home among my family and friends.

I claim the right to take a stand once in a while.

The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.

An intellectual is going to have doubts, for example, about a fundamentalist religious doctrine that admits no doubt, about an imposed political system that allows no doubt, about a perfect aesthetic that has no room for doubt.

It's very useful when politicians have doubts because there are so many choices to be made in the world.

Saya juga tidak ingin mempromosikan gambar saya sendiri. Saya tidak suka menonton televisi atau bergaul dengan kalangan sastra.

Tugas saya adalah melihat apa yang dilakukan politik, bukan menjadi politisi sendiri.

Literature is my life of course, but from an ontological point of view. From an existential point of view, I like being a teacher.

But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance.

No, I'm happy to go on living the life I've chosen. I'm a university teacher and I like my job.

I don't have any doubts either about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Perhaps some more should be added to the list, but I don't have the slightest doubt about human rights.

Sebagai seorang penulis, saya selalu tertarik pada orang lain.

Eco sees the intellectual as an organizer of culture, someone who can run a magazine or a museum. An administrator, in fact. I think this is a melancholy situation for an intellectual.

We all want to be someone else but without ceasing to be ourselves. I think it's very important to defend this idea in real life too.

I don't know whether these people are going to find themselves, but as they live their lives they have no choice but to face up to the image others have of them. They're forced to look at themselves in a mirror, and they often manage to glimpse something of themselves.