Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Less
Intended
Read
Hadn
Stills
Difference
Still
Wouldn
Book
Differences
Make
Waiting
Would
Reading
Cremated
Whether
Originally

More quotes by Gao Xingjian

Image
When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice.
Gao Xingjian
Image
Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell.
Gao Xingjian
Image
Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together.
Gao Xingjian
Image
Only a lunatic would think that art is superior to nature.
Gao Xingjian
Image
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
Image
Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.
Gao Xingjian
Image
Literature is subservient to nothing but truth.
Gao Xingjian
Image
When you're telling a story, you've got to give details.
Gao Xingjian
Image
Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.
Gao Xingjian
Image
It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth.
Gao Xingjian
Image
I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.
Gao Xingjian
Image
I believe in science but I also believe in fate.
Gao Xingjian
Image
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
Image
I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.
Gao Xingjian
Image
Men always look differently at women, even if it's not your intention it is wrongly interpreted as such.
Gao Xingjian
Image
Once the buttons are undone, you know how it'll all end. It's all in the game, there are no miracles.
Gao Xingjian
Image
Soul Mountain, the story of one man’s quest for inner peace and freedom.
Gao Xingjian
Image
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.
Gao Xingjian
Image
Everyone has to have either this or that problem, if he can't find any problem, he loses all reason for living.
Gao Xingjian
Image
There are numerous layers to truth, and the simple and superficial statement of facts cannot satisfy the writer.
Gao Xingjian