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I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.

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
Suffocate
Profound
Novel
Write
Writing
Would

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Soul Mountain, the story of one man’s quest for inner peace and freedom.
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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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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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Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.
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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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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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Only a lunatic would think that art is superior to nature.
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I believe in science but I also believe in fate.
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When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice.
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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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Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural.
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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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If you want to do anything, do it now, without compromise or concession, because you have only one life.
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Literature is subservient to nothing but truth.
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Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.
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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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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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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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Maybe there isn't a God after all, maybe there's only a universe rotating by itself like a millstone.
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