Bali Quotes

One would assume that travelers to Bali, the heaven on earth, would cry for joy. But in reality, every traveler is grieving some loss or another.

My dearest life, I know you are not mine forever; but do love me even if it’s for this moment. After that I shall vanish into the forest where you cast me, I won’t ask anyone for anything again. Give me something that can last me till I die.

David Attenborough has said that Bali is the most beautiful place in the world, but he must have been there longer than we were, and seen different bits, because most of what we saw in the couple of days we were there sorting out our travel arrangements was awful. It was just the tourist area, i.e., that part of Bali which has been made almost exactly the same as everywhere else in the world for the sake of people who have come all this way to see Bali.

It is a traveler’s fallacy that one should shop for clothing while abroad. Those white linen tunics, so elegant in Greece, emerge from the suitcase as mere hippie rags; the beautiful striped shirts of Rome are confined to the closet; and the delicate hand batiks of Bali are first cruise wear, then curtains, then signs of impending madness.

Don't talk about heaven if you've never been to Bali.

Bhuta ia, dewa ia. (Bali expression meaning Man is a demon, man is a god.)

And like tea dissolving in hot water, the sun dissolved in the sky… creating a velvet horizon, announcing for the stars’ night dance with the moon, the awaited joy for the wounded souls. -- From Bali – The Rebirth

Religious ceremonies are of paramount importance in Bali ( an island, don't forget, with seven unpredictable volcanoes on it-you would pray, too).

Hawaii. Nieuw-Zeeland. Machu Picchu. Tokio. Bali.

Vieną laišką jis man konfiskuoja už tai, kad jame buvo parašyta: „Baisiai nuobodus biznis už surūdijusių vielų sėdėti...” - Kaip tu drįsti rašyti, kad už surūdijusių vielų sėdi? Ar nieko kita nematai lageryje? ar nematai, berželiai auga? Vėl jis man sako: - Lauk! - Ir aš einu lauk. Laišką perrašiau. Rašau: mūsų spygliuotų įelektrintų vielų tvora spindi žaižaruoja kaip sidabrinė, smulkiu cukrumi apibarstyta. Už tvoros matyti trys berželiai, du kelmai ir vienas grybas.

Ko ko, bet kvailių visur yra daugiau, negu reikia. Kiekviena tauta jų turi ir sau, ir eksportui pakankamai, lygiai kaip kiekviena tauta turi nuosavus latrus ir šventuosius." ― Balys Sruoga, Dievų miškas

The pain of dwelling on the wrongs done to us by other people far exceeds the little bit of pleasure we derive from condemning others for their guilt.

Unquestionably, the number of fools is always greater than necessary. Every nation has enough for itself and enough for export.

...orang Bali mempunjai kepertjajaan... kalau gunung Agung meletus ini berarti bahwa rakjat telah melakukan maksiat.

Viena, kas gera šioje aplinkoje, - kad visiškai išnyksta mirties baimė. Mirtis čionai gresia kiekviename žingsnyje. Čionai taip žmogus apsipranta su mirties perspektyva, kad ji darosi šiokiadienė šiukšlė. Mirtis nustoja savo kilnaus tragizmo elemento. Ji nustoja čionai ir savo lyrizmo.

Ci sono cose che si perdono e non tornano indietro; non si possono riavere mai più, se non nella carta carbone della memoria. Ci sono cose a cui sembra impossibile rassegnarsi ma a cui rassegnarsi è inevitabile. Lo scorrere dei giorni leviga il dolore ma non lo consuma: quello che il tempo si porta via è andato, e poi si resta con un qualcosa di freddo e duro, un souvenir che non si perde mai. Un piccolo bassotto di porcellana delle White Mountains. Una marionetta del teatro delle ombre di Bali. E guarda: un calzascarpe d'avorio di un hotel a quattro stelle di Zurigo. E qua, come un sasso che porto ovunque, c'è un pezzetto di cuore altrui che ho conservato da un vecchio viaggio.

Your imagination and some masturbation is a much better alternative to finding out what kind of person a bit of casual sex transforms you into.

You need a break every once in a while to enjoy the everyday and you need the everyday to enjoy the break you take every once in a while.

Meanwhile I chain-smoked Bali cigarettes, looking at the window at the highway and thinking about the disaster that was my life.

অধিকারলাভের যে মর্যাদা আছে, সেই মর্যাদা রক্ষা করিতে হইলে অধিকারপ্রয়োগকে সংযত করিতে হয়। যতটা পাওয়া যায় ততটা লইয়া টানাটানি করা কাঙালকেই শোভা পায় — ভোগকে খর্ব করিলেই সম্পদের যথার্থ গৌরব।

Don't just hope, dear. Plan and do. Only reserve hope for the things you cannot control.

There's no need to blame fate or destiny for a stupid decision.

I guess my biggest problem is that I find it easier to relapse than to carry through.

Five devils are approaching. Five black hearts are wanting. It is five who cry a dark and lonely song, calling for their queen. Lion, shark, dragon, wolf and...shadow.

Pirmoj eilėj aš gerbiu skaitytoją, o mano kritikai iš manęs reikalauja, kad aš skaitytoją durnium laikyčiau.

Your choices can only be limited by your mind.

Do you remember that old song? 'She wore an itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikini...

She wondered, would their relationship gradually turn into something more? ... Time would tell!

A gut full of heroin and the looming possibility of bunking in an overcrowded cell in Kerobokan to await my death makes you feel a bit sorry for some of the things you've done.

I guess having one hundred and four condoms full of heroin in your guts and the thought of a firing squad in your head make will make most things seem insignificant.

My job had been to get the package from point A to point B and what happened after that did not need to concern me. I was just the mule.

Žiūrėk, kokį bičiulį sutinki, — pasišneki, pasitrokšti, — visiškai ne kvailo berno esama. Bet kai pasitaiko versti jo meilės laiškus, — suk jį devyni, koks jis asilas!

Mountains don't move do they?' 'Not unless they encounter faith,'(...)

It is easy to drown yourself effortlessly into that which is truly profound and do no realise its true worth. And since the restless illusion which brings no pleasure even if you drain it to the dregs lead us by the nose and makes us dance a merry dance to its tune and we take it to be the lost desirable thing

Kokį moralinį, kokį istorinį pateisinimą būtų galima sugalvoti tiesiem, kurie kitus tokia lengva širdimi siunčia į koncentracijos lagerius? Jokios politinės, jokios religinės, jokios pasaulėžiūrinės idėjos jų niekuomet nepateisins! Jie savo žmogiškąją menkystą galėtų atpirkti tiktai tuomet, jei patys savo dienas baigtų tose pačiose sąlygose, į kurias kitus tremia, besivadovaudami pamišėliškomis idėjinėmis fikcijomis! Kitaip amžių prakeikimas slėgs ne tik jų atmintį, slėgs ir jų palikuonių palikuonis!

When you are walking down the road in Bali and your pass a stranger, the very first question he or she will ask you is, "Where are you going?" The second question is, "Where are you coming from?" To a Westerner, this can seem like a rather invasive inquiry from a perfect stranger, but they're just trying to get an orientation on you, trying to insert you into the grid for the purposes of security and comfort. If you tell them that you don't know where you're going, or that you're just wandering about randomly, you might instigate a bit of distress in the heart of your new Balinese friend. It's far better to pick some kind of specific direction -- anywhere -- just so everybody feels better. The third question a Balinese will almost certainly ask you is, "Are you married?" Again, it's a positioning and orienting inquiry. It's necessary for them to know this, to make sure that you are completely in order in your life. They really want you to say yes. it's such a relief to them when you say yes. If you're single, it's better not to say so directly. And I really recommend that you not mention your divorce at all, if you happen to have had one. It just makes the Balinese so worried. The only thing your solitude proves to them is your perilous dislocation from the grid. If you are a single woman traveling through Bali and somebody asks you, "Are you married?" the best possible answer is: "Not yet." This is a polite way of saying, "No," while indicating your optimistic intentions to get that taken care of just as soon as you can. Even if you are eighty years old, or a lesbian, or a strident feminist, or a nun, or an eighty-year-old strident feminist lesbian nun who has never been married and never intends to get married, the politest possible answer is still: "Not yet.

We need to reform our funeral industry, introducing new practices that aren't so profit-oriented, and that do more to include the family. But we cannot begin to reform—or even question!-our death systems when we act like little Jean de Brébeufs, falsely convinced we have it right while all these "other people" are disrespectful and barbarous. This dismissive attitude can be found in places you'd never expect. Lonely Planet, the largest guidebook publisher in the world, included the idyllic Trunyan cemetery in their book on visiting Bali. In Trunyan, the villagers weave bamboo cages for their dead to decompose in, and then stack the skulls and bones out in the lush green landscape. Lonely Planet, instead of explaining the meaning behind these ancient customs, advised wise travelers to "skip the ghoulish spectacle.

She knocked at the door, expecting a friendly greeting because of the atmosphere of this house, but, instead, the door opened just a crack and dark eyes stared at her for a moment. Then the door gradually opened and an elderly woman grabbed Amelia's hand and yanked her inside. "Hurry! Get inside!

Žmogaus psichika „pagal liniją“ niekuomet nesiformuoja, kol ji tebėra žmogaus psichika! Rašytojas rašo taip, kaip jis jaučia, kaip jis mato pasaulį, — kiekvienas kitaip, savaip, — kaip ir visi menininkai kūrėjai. O paskui jam sako: ne taip, ne pagal liniją! Tavo tokiam personažui reikia viena koja prikirpti, nosis — pridurti. Prasideda rašytojui Golgotos kančios.

The alienating effects of wealth and modernity on the human experience start virtually at birth and never let up. Infants in hunter-gatherer societies are carried by their mothers as much as 90 percent of the time, which roughly corresponds to carrying rates among other primates. One can get an idea of how important this kind of touch is to primates from an infamous experiment conducted in the 1950s by a primatologist and psychologist named Harry Harlow. Baby rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers and presented with the choice of two kinds of surrogates: a cuddly mother made out of terry cloth or an uninviting mother made out of wire mesh. The wire mesh mother, however, had a nipple that dispensed warm milk. The babies took their nourishment as quickly as possible and then rushed back to cling to the terry cloth mother, which had enough softness to provide the illusion of affection. Clearly, touch and closeness are vital to the health of baby primates—including humans. In America during the 1970s, mothers maintained skin-to-skin contact with babies as little as 16 percent of the time, which is a level that traditional societies would probably consider a form of child abuse. Also unthinkable would be the modern practice of making young children sleep by themselves. In two American studies of middle-class families during the 1980s, 85 percent of young children slept alone in their own room—a figure that rose to 95 percent among families considered “well educated.” Northern European societies, including America, are the only ones in history to make very young children sleep alone in such numbers. The isolation is thought to make many children bond intensely with stuffed animals for reassurance. Only in Northern European societies do children go through the well-known developmental stage of bonding with stuffed animals; elsewhere, children get their sense of safety from the adults sleeping near them. The point of making children sleep alone, according to Western psychologists, is to make them “self-soothing,” but that clearly runs contrary to our evolution. Humans are primates—we share 98 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees—and primates almost never leave infants unattended, because they would be extremely vulnerable to predators. Infants seem to know this instinctively, so being left alone in a dark room is terrifying to them. Compare the self-soothing approach to that of a traditional Mayan community in Guatemala: “Infants and children simply fall asleep when sleepy, do not wear specific sleep clothes or use traditional transitional objects, room share and cosleep with parents or siblings, and nurse on demand during the night.” Another study notes about Bali: “Babies are encouraged to acquire quickly the capacity to sleep under any circumstances, including situations of high stimulation, musical performances, and other noisy observances which reflect their more complete integration into adult social activities.