Quotes by Malaysian Authors

What our deepest self craves is not mere enjoyment but some supreme purpose that will enlist all our powers and give unity and direction to our life.
Henry J. Golding
How could you die and not be old enough to hear about premarital sex? How could you die and still not be allowed to fall in love or be honest? Surely not everything had to wait for university and a good job. Passion and truth had to trump even those things.
Zen Cho
unrequited love is the most selfless love.
Stefanie Sta. Maria
Trials or little tests contain lessons to be learnt.
Norhafsah Hamid
My eyes wondered from one end of the mountains to the other. 'Do you think they go on forever?''The mountains?' Aritomo said, as though he had been asked that question before. 'They fade away. Like all things.
Tan Twan Eng
The International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC)... to establish a superior library reflecting the religious and intellectual traditions both of the Islamic and Western civilizations.
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
Losing never come easy. First off, preserved the memories.
Hlovate
If you're ashamed to stand by your colours, you better seek for another flag.
Mokhtar Dahari
Love was like swallowing a cili padi whole.
Zen Cho
How not to miss those days when the sun was a happy companion that stayed to play all year round and kissed me a careless nut brown? When Mother caught the sweet rain in her well behind the house, and the air was so clear that the grass smelled green?
Rani Manicka
The Chinese considered the moon to be yin, feminine and full of negative energy, as opposed to the sun that was yang and exemplified masculinity. I liked the moon, with its soft silver beams. It was at once elusive and filled with trickery, so that lost objects that had rolled into the crevices of a room were rarely found, and books read in its light seemed to contain all sorts of fanciful stories that were never there the next morning.
Yangsze Choo
But a woman should not marry where there is no respect. Respect is the most important thing.
Zen Cho
He would gaze at her with intrigued longan seed eyes.
Zen Cho
I can speak four dialects, but none of them is fairy language.
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
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
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
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
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
I might go anywhere and do any magic I pleased if I were Peter, not Prunella.
Zen Cho
Academics place much more importance on rigorous logic. There is also admiration in the profession for subtle reasoning. And mastery of the craft shows itself in the elegance of the intellectual super-structure…. The practitioner, on the other hand, uses economic theory only to the extent that he finds it useful in comprehending the problem at hand, so that practical courses of action will emerge which can be evaluated not merely in narrow economic cost-benefit terms, but by taking into account a wider range of considerations…. A practitioner is not judged by the rigour of his logic or by the elegance of his presentation. He is judged by results.
Goh Keng Swee
Neither the student nor I would mind in the least fair criticism and correction, but no one will permit himself to suffer criticism and correction from another whose knowledge and understanding of the subject is less than the one criticized and corrected; whose knowledge and understanding of the subject is susceptible to doubt as to its true worth and validity.
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
You need to decide for yourself whether you want to be a rare jewel or a common flower
Norhafsah Hamid
Maturity is about Challenging yourself and Improving!And then taking that experience to help others...
Tsem Tulku Rinpoche
Why should a financial engineer be paid four, four times... to a hundred times more than the, uh... real engineer?A real engineer build bridges, a financial engineer build, build dreams.And when those dream turn out to be nightmares, other people pay for it.
Andrew Sheng
Being a husband or a wife, is already a huge responsibility to shoulder, without adding in the expectations.
Norhafsah Hamid
People, there's no such thing as, THE BEST CAMERA BRAND, but yes there will always be THE BEST CAMERA AT ANY GIVEN TIME. Technology will change, but not art.
Ashraf Saharudin
To live is learn, and to learn is to live. Live. Learn.
Hlovate
For Americans, the car is the American way. Jay Gatsby roars through capitalism, individual freedom, and the good life. For China, the train is the metaphor. Everyone's on board, there's no chance to steer, and it's clickety-clack to collectivism's dreams.
Mei Fong
Free and quality education is a fundamental liberty
Anwar Ibrahim
Time' is actually the best gift, given to us by our Creator.
Norhafsah Hamid
Never sit under a tree waiting for the apple to fall. Climb the tree, grab that apple!When it comes, never be inert and take your time, TIME TO MOVE!
Tsem Tulku Rinpoche
The aunts’ conception of the right to privacy went far enough to allow you to close the toilet door when you were peeing, but no further.
Zen Cho
In a proper Islamic University, fard 'ain knowledge which represents the permanent intellectual and spiritual needs of the human soul--should form the core curriculum, and should be made obligatory to all students. Fard kifayah knowledge--reflecting societal needs and global trends--is not obligatory to all, but must be mastered by and adequate number of Muslims to ensure the proper development of the Community and to safeguard its proper place in world affairs. The fard 'ain knowledge shall include knowledge of the traditional Islamic sciences such as the Arabic language, metaphysics, the Qur'an and Hadith, ethics, the shari'ah sciences, and the history of Islam. Consonant with our position that these fard 'ain sciences are not static but dynamic, they should be continuously studied, analyzed, and applied in relation to the fard kifayah sciences; i.e. the fields of their specialization.
Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud
The concept of ta'dib, if properly understood and competently explicated, is the correct concept of education in Islam, and not ta'lim or tarbiyah, which are currently in vogue among Muslims all over the world. this is because ta'dib already includes within its conceptual structure the elements of knowledge ('ilm), instruction (ta'lim), and good breeding (tarbiyah).
Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud
Manuscripts - at least for Muslims who understand the subject - are to be read as books whose contents are to be known and understood, for that is why they were written, and not to be regarded as enigmatic specimens for critical textual and philological exercises. To them what is in the manuscripts is more important than what is on them, and so they say: Al-'ilmu fi'l-sudur la fi'l-sutur.
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
Man is like an island set in isolation in a fathomless sea enveloped by darkness, saying that the loneliness his self knows is so utterly absolute because even he knows not his self completely.
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
It is a meaningful thing for a scientist of the stature of Ibn Sina, certainly one of the best scientific minds in the whole history of mankind, to often resort to prayer to seek God's help in solving his philosophical and scientific problems. And it is also perfectly understandable why the purification of the soul is considered an integral part of the methodology of knowledge.
Osman Bakar
Logic, when used correctly and by an intellect that is not corrupted by the lower passions, may lead to one to the Transcendent itself.
Osman Bakar
Seeing that he owns absolutely nothing to ‘repay’ his debt, ‘his own consciousness’ of the fact ‘that he is himself the very substance’ of debt, so must he ‘repay’ with himself, so must he ‘return’ himself to Him Who owns him absolutely.
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
When the man, by means if 'ibadat, succeeded in curbing his animal and canal passions and has thereby rendered submissive his animal soul,making it subject to the rational soul, the man thus described has attained to freedom and existence;he has achieved supreme peace and his soul is pacified, being set at liberty, as it were, free from fetters of inexorable fate and the noisy strife and hell of human vices.
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
Don't win someone you're willing to lose
Stefanie Sta. Maria
Little people doing little things in little places everywhere can change the world.
Anwar Fazal
Justice and injustice indeed begins and ends with the self.
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
Be grateful with what you have, So you will live your life without regret.
Juliana Azmi
Islam is simple, but being a Muslim in a modern world is not. Everyday is a battle that each of us have to face. It is easy to get swept away and lose one's identity. The constant struggle is to find out who we are and how to remain steadfast.
Norhafsah Hamid
Do not have expectations. We humans are created imperfect, which means that we have flaws
Norhafsah Hamid
The palest ink will endure beyond the memories of man
Tan Twan Eng
To have memories, happy or sorrowful, is a blessing, for it shows we have lived our lives without reservation.
Tan Twan Eng
Keep the good memories and throw out the bad ones
Norhafsah Hamid
There is a rhythm to our language. they echo the rhythm of our life.
ninotaziz
One of the keys to achieving understanding is humility.
Norhafsah Hamid
The contrast between the realization of his neglect and the fondness I had for my father was painful".
Yangsze Choo
If I had known how easy it is to lose your life, I would have treasured mine better".
Yangsze Choo
A great thinker does not necessarily have to discover a master idea but has to rediscover and to affirm a true but forgotten, ignored or misunderstood master idea and interpret it in all the diverse aspects of thought not previously done, in a powerful and consistent way, despite surrounding ignorance and opposition. This criterion we think would include all prophets and their true followers among the Muslim scholars. He is both a great and original thinker who brings new meanings and interpretations to old ideas, thereby providing both continuity and originality to the important intellectual and cultural problems of his time and through it, of mankind. Thus the brilliant interpretations of scholars and sages like al-Ghazali and Mulla Sadra then, and Iqbal and al-Attas now, deserve to be recognized and acknowledged as manifesting certain qualities of greatness and originality.
Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud
Odd, some might think. Why someone would need to travel so far to find oneself. Surely a look in the mirror would suffice, and wouldn’t that be cheaper too? But the mirror lies, and the eyes that do the looking conspire too.
Farish A. Noor
Don't always use PAIN that you receive as an excuse to GIVE PAIN...
Tsem Tulku Rinpoche
Are you going? What shall you wear?""I shall go in what I am standing in," said Mak Genggang. "A witch is always appropriate whatever her attire.
Zen Cho
Whether I'm a good wife doesn't have anything to do with what he was like.
Zen Cho
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