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They say it only takes an instant to have a dream a dream can be compressed into hardtack.

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
Instant
Takes
Dream
Compressed

More quotes by 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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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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I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.
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Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural.
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Walk where your heart leads you, there are no restrictions and no burdens.
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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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When you're telling a story, you've got to give details.
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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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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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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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Maybe there isn't a God after all, maybe there's only a universe rotating by itself like a millstone.
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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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There are numerous layers to truth, and the simple and superficial statement of facts cannot satisfy the writer.
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Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.
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Literature is subservient to nothing but truth.
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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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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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Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.
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