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

More quotes by Gao Xingjian

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I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.
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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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Reality is myself, reality is only the perception of this instant and it can't be related to another person.
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When you're telling a story, you've got to give details.
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Man tends to think that he is a creator, that he is like God. This is especially true of intellectuals, and in the last century, intellectuals tended to forget that they were like everyone else. Writing this book was a description of man going from a state of God back to a state of man, back to being a normal person.
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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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Maybe there isn't a God after all, maybe there's only a universe rotating by itself like a millstone.
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Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.
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Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together.
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When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice.
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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.
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Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural.
Gao Xingjian
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The enterprise of describing something in language that has never been described before is a very difficult thing to do. When you decide to do away with old cliches or old phraseologies, and to come up with a new way of saying something, it's extremely difficult.
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Once the buttons are undone, you know how it'll all end. It's all in the game, there are no miracles.
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Only a lunatic would think that art is superior to nature.
Gao Xingjian
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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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I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.
Gao Xingjian
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In the snow outside my window I see a small green frog, one eye blinking and the other wide open, unmoving, looking at me. I know this is God.
Gao Xingjian
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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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Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.
Gao Xingjian