The Year of Living Dangerously

The Year of Living Dangerously Quotes

A young Australian reporter tries to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia during the rule of President Sukarno with the help of a diminutive photographer.

Billy Kwan: If it's in focus, it's pornography, if it's out of focus, it's art.
Billy Kwan: What then must we do? We must give with love to whoever God has placed in our path.
Billy Kwan: We'll make a great team, old man. You for the words, me for the pictures. I can be your eyes.
Billy Kwan: -Don't think about the major issues. You do what you can about the misery in front of you. You add your light to the sum of all light.
Jill Bryant: [remarking on one of Guy's articles] I found it a bit melodramatic. That's only my opinion, my flatmate was moved to tears. So, there you are.
Guy Hamilton: What does it take to move you to tears, eh?
Billy Kwan: In the West, we want answers for everything. Everything is right or wrong, or good or bad. But in the
[shadow play]
Billy Kwan: no such final conclusion exists.
Billy Kwan: Look at Prince Ajuna. He's a hero. But he can also be fickle and selfish. Krishna says to him, "All is clouded by desire, Ajuna, as a fire by smoke, as a mirror by dust. Through these, it blinds the soul.
Billy Kwan: Starvation is a great aphrodisiac.
Kumar: For my father, I'll play the beggar.
Billy Kwan: [Despairing over a shift in Guy Hamilton's values] Why can't you give yourself? Why can't you learn to love?
Kumar: You in old Java now, Boss.
Guy Hamilton: It's not just A story, it's THE bloody story - can't you understand that?
Pete Curtis: So, Hamilton, you really think Sukarno's going to let the commies have their own little private army?
Guy Hamilton: That's what Aidit says.
Pete Curtis: Aidit's lying.
Guy Hamilton: Maybe.
Pete Curtis: Then why report it?
Guy Hamilton: Maybe he's *not* lying.
Billy Kwan: Stalin had good Discipline. He killed 10 million.
Billy Kwan: Most of us become children again when we enter the slums of Asia. And last night I watched you walk back into childhood. With all its opposite intensities: laughter and misery, the crazy and the grim, toy town and a city of fear.
Billy Kwan: I would have given up the world for her. You wouldn't even give up one story.
[last lines]
Guy Hamilton: Kumar, I am sorry.
Kumar: Don't worry. We're going to win, because we believe in something.
Guy Hamilton: Goodbye, Kumar.
Kumar: Think of me Guy, when you are sitting in some nice cafe in Europe. In my dreams, I am always sitting at the table, by the footpath, drinking coffee.
Guy Hamilton: Good Luck.
Kumar: Now go, quickly!
Billy Kwan: Here, on the quiet page, I am the master.

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