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For me, writing [was] a question of survival...I could not trust anyone, even my family. The atmosphere was so poisoned. People even in your own family could turn you in.
Gao Xingjian
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Gao Xingjian
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: January 4
Film Director
Literary Critic
Novelist
Painter
Playwright
Translator
Writer
Xingjian Gao
Hành Kiện Cao
Hsing-chien Kao
People
Trust
Question
Turn
Anyone
Turns
Family
Poisoned
Writing
Atmosphere
Even
Survival
More quotes by Gao Xingjian
I hadn't originally intended to do any reading, what if I did read one book more or one book less, whether I read or not wouldn't make a difference, I would still be waiting to get cremated.
Gao Xingjian
Everyone has to have either this or that problem, if he can't find any problem, he loses all reason for living.
Gao Xingjian
Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.
Gao Xingjian
I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.
Gao Xingjian
Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together.
Gao Xingjian
When you're telling a story, you've got to give details.
Gao Xingjian
Soul Mountain, the story of one man’s quest for inner peace and freedom.
Gao Xingjian
Literature is subservient to nothing but truth.
Gao Xingjian
To subvert is not the aim of literature, its value lies in discovering and revealing what is rarely known, little known, thought to be known but in fact not very well known of the truth of the human world. It would seem that truth is the unassailable and most basic quality of literature.
Gao Xingjian
Reality is myself, reality is only the perception of this instant and it can't be related to another person.
Gao Xingjian
I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.
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
Maybe there isn't a God after all, maybe there's only a universe rotating by itself like a millstone.
Gao Xingjian
I believe in science but I also believe in fate.
Gao Xingjian
There are numerous layers to truth, and the simple and superficial statement of facts cannot satisfy the writer.
Gao Xingjian
The human need for language is not simply for the transmission of meaning, it is at the same time listening to and affirming a person's existence.
Gao Xingjian
Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell.
Gao Xingjian
You should know that there is little you can seek in this world, that there is no need for you to be so greedy, in the end all you can achieve are memories, hazy, intangible, dreamlike memories which are impossible to articulate. When you try to relate them, there are only sentences, the dregs left from the filter of linguistic structures.
Gao Xingjian
They say it only takes an instant to have a dream a dream can be compressed into hardtack.
Gao Xingjian
When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice.
Gao Xingjian
