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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

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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
Literature
Affirmation
History
Authors
Write
Published
Self
Continued
Many
Achieved
Great
Endure
Lifetimes
Writing
Lifetime
Enduring
Works
Selfless

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I believe in science but I also believe in fate.
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Soul Mountain, the story of one man’s quest for inner peace and freedom.
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Maybe there isn't a God after all, maybe there's only a universe rotating by itself like a millstone.
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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.
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There are numerous layers to truth, and the simple and superficial statement of facts cannot satisfy the writer.
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Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together.
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In my view the time for rousing revolutionary literature has passed, because the revolution has already revolutionised itself to death and has left behind only bitterness and a sort of weariness, listlessness and even nausea.
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Men always look differently at women, even if it's not your intention it is wrongly interpreted as such.
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When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice.
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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.
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Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.
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Literature is subservient to nothing but truth.
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Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.
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Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.
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It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth.
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I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.
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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.
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Reality is myself, reality is only the perception of this instant and it can't be related to another person.
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If you want to do anything, do it now, without compromise or concession, because you have only one life.
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