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Gao Xingjian Quotes

Gao Xingjian Quotes.

Some distance away is a white azalea bush which stuns me with its stately beauty. This is pristine natural beauty. it is irrepressible, seeks no reward, and is without goal, a beauty derived neither from symbolism nor metaphor and needing neither analogies nor associations.
Gao Xingjian
When I first heard that I had won the prize, I thought that it was something for myself, that it was something personal, recognition of my writings. But there is such a strong reaction from Chinese people in particular. It’s been very passionate, overwhelming and passionate, Chinese people from all over the world.
Gao Xingjian
Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural.
Gao Xingjian
With the beginning of life, comes the thirst for truth, whereas the ability to lie is gradually acquired in the process of trying to stay alive.
Gao Xingjian
Many intellectuals feel themselves to be Supermen who are spokesmen for the people. But in my opinion, they’re to be pitied. Under Mao’s dictatorship, these poor sheep suffered the same fate as everyone else.
Gao Xingjian
Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.
Gao Xingjian
Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.
Gao Xingjian
Dreams are more real than reality itself, they’re closer to the self.
Gao Xingjian
Literature transcends national boundaries, racial boundaries. It goes deep into the issues that concern all human beings. That is why, when people read Greek tragedy – it doesn’t matter who reads it – they are still moved by it.
Gao Xingjian
A good work can be communicated across languages … [provided one does not] fall into the trap of narrow-minded nationalistic or chauvinistic thinking.
Gao Xingjian
When I lived in China, my works were already being banned, and I couldn’t publish. In those days, when I was in China, I was writing for myself, so that’s the process of writing for myself that was the most important thing.
Gao Xingjian
When I completed writing ‘Soul Mountain,’ I more or less closed the accounts with China for myself. I was 50 years old when I left, so China is already within me.
Gao Xingjian
A writer has to fully defend his rights and his own worth.
Gao Xingjian
You contemplate and you wander without any worries, between heaven and earth, in your own private world, and in this way you acquire supreme freedom.
Gao Xingjian
I was born Chinese, and I write in Chinese. I don’t think there’s any need to evade this… to a writer, as to a person, what matters is not his political label or his nationality, but whether he is a person and whether his work is worth looking at.
Gao Xingjian
Experience has taught me that any kind of political grouping is oppressive. It’s the blind mass that crushes the individual.
Gao Xingjian
Literature hasn’t come up with any new themes. The literature of all different times – it’s still dealing with how one resolves issues of existence.
Gao Xingjian
In the history of literature there are many great enduring works which were not published in the lifetimes of the authors. If the authors had not achieved self-affirmation while writing, how could they have continued to write?
Gao Xingjian
Literature is higher than politics, if not actually above politics.
Gao Xingjian
You’re safe only when you can’t see anybody.
Gao Xingjian
It’s in literature that true life can be found. It’s under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth.
Gao Xingjian
The destruction of Chinese traditional culture didn’t start in 1949. It started long before that, with the succession of revolutions. It was particularly bad during the Cultural Revolution, the destruction of traditional Chinese culture.
Gao Xingjian
Various political parties, even if they’re in direct opposition with one another, still say they are the spokesperson for the people. The writer must speak his own words and not get mixed up with politics.
Gao Xingjian
Walk where your heart leads you, there are no restrictions and no burdens.
Gao Xingjian
Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together.
Gao Xingjian
Loneliness is a prerequisite for freedom. Freedom depends on the ability to reflect, and reflection can only begin when one is alone.
Gao Xingjian
I don’t want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.
Gao Xingjian
When you use words, you’re able to keep your mind alive. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.
Gao Xingjian
Truth refuses to be subservient to either politics or the market.
Gao Xingjian
Writing eases my suffering . . . writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.
Gao Xingjian