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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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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
Writer
Simple
Facts
Numerous
Cannot
Satisfy
Truth
Superficial
Layers
Statement
Statements

More quotes by 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.
Gao Xingjian
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Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.
Gao Xingjian
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Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.
Gao Xingjian
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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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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
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Reality is myself, reality is only the perception of this instant and it can't be related to another person.
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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Soul Mountain, the story of one man’s quest for inner peace and freedom.
Gao Xingjian
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Walk where your heart leads you, there are no restrictions and no burdens.
Gao Xingjian
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Only a lunatic would think that art is superior to nature.
Gao Xingjian
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Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.
Gao Xingjian
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I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.
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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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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If you want to do anything, do it now, without compromise or concession, because you have only one life.
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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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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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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Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural.
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