“Perhaps. I need writing. Don't ask me why -- just take out your pen and write your name on my arm -- go on.”

“When I was teenager, I wanted to be medical doctor. I would write "Dr" into my name - "Dr Sukanto". After I got married, my wife found out and asked me, "Why did you put a 'Dr' before your name?" I said this was my dream but I couldn't continue my education because the school closed and I was not qualified to go to any school.”

“Write with your eyes like painters, with your ears like musicians, with your feet like dancers. You are the truthsayer with quill and torch. Write with your tongues of fire. Don't let the pen banish you from yourself.”

“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”

“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.”

“Maybe you're one of those people who writes poems, but rarely reads them. Let me put this as delicately as I can: If you don't read, your writing is going to suck.”

“They did not put much value on my capacities, which were admittedly few, but genuine. I read everything, I wrote constantly, and I had boyfriends by the barrelful. “Why don’t you do the assigned reading?” they’d ask. “Why don’t you write your papers instead of whatever you’re writing—what is that, a short story?” “Why don’t you expend as much energy on your schoolwork as you do on your boyfriends?” By my senior year I didn’t even bother with excuses, let alone explanations. “Where is your term paper?” asked my history teacher. “I didn’t write it. I have nothing to say on that topic.” “You could have picked another topic.””

“If you don't like my story, write your own”

“To me, song writing is so therapeutic, it's just part of my life and I can't go through the day without having some kind of song idea pop into my head where I have to write Sharpie all over my arm trying to remember the song idea.”

“I am not going to dictate to you what you write about my life and work. I only ask that you not make me out to be a 'whiner and sentimentalist.”