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Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.

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
Clear
Yields
Point
Observing
Humans
Minded
Yield
Observation
Oneself
Starting
Literature

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Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.
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They say it only takes an instant to have a dream a dream can be compressed into hardtack.
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I believe in science but I also believe in fate.
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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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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.
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Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together.
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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?
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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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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.
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Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell.
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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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Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural.
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Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.
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Literature is subservient to nothing but truth.
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I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.
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Only a lunatic would think that art is superior to nature.
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Walk where your heart leads you, there are no restrictions and no burdens.
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Everyone has to have either this or that problem, if he can't find any problem, he loses all reason for living.
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When you're telling a story, you've got to give details.
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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.
Gao Xingjian