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Literature is subservient to nothing but truth.

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
Subservient
Literature
Truth
Nothing

More quotes by Gao Xingjian

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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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Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.
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Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.
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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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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
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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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Walk where your heart leads you, there are no restrictions and no burdens.
Gao Xingjian
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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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I believe in science but I also believe in fate.
Gao Xingjian
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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.
Gao Xingjian
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When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice.
Gao Xingjian
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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.
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.
Gao Xingjian
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There are numerous layers to truth, and the simple and superficial statement of facts cannot satisfy the writer.
Gao Xingjian
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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.
Gao Xingjian
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Soul Mountain, the story of one man’s quest for inner peace and freedom.
Gao Xingjian
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Only a lunatic would think that art is superior to nature.
Gao Xingjian
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Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell.
Gao Xingjian
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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.
Gao Xingjian
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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