59+ Gao Xingjian Quotes On Gaang, Sale And Experimental

Gao Xingjian is a Chinese novelist, playwright, and critic. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000 for his work that "with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary". His most famous work is the novel Soul Mountain, which was published in 1990. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Gao Xingjian on gaang, love, sale.

Top 10 Gao Xingjian Quotes

1. Dreams are more real than reality itself, they're closer to the self.
2. Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.
3. Love is so holy, so confusing. It makes a man anxious, tormented. Love, how can I define it?
4. It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth.
5. A good work can be communicated across languages ... [provided one does not] fall into the trap of narrow-minded nationalistic or chauvinistic thinking.
6. I decided that I did not want to follow any of these ideologies or trends, because these also exerted a kind of pressure, and obstructed absolute creative freedom.
7. Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together.
8. A good man never fights with a woman.
9. Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural.
10. 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 Short Quotes

• When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice.
• Indeed, loft aspirations produce ideas.
• Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.
• They say it only takes an instant to have a dream; a dream can be compressed into hardtack.
• The sand murmurs that it wants to swallow everything.
• Truth refuses to be subservient to either politics or the market.
• I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.
• Only a lunatic would think that art is superior to nature.
• I believe in science but I also believe in fate.
• Walk where your heart leads you, there are no restrictions and no burdens.

Gao Xingjian Quotes About Writing

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

If, while observing the boundless universe, the writer is able to scrutinise his own self as well as others, the resulting incisiveness of his observations will far surpass objective descriptions of reality. — Gao Xingjian

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

When you use words, you're able to keep your mind alive. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence. — Gao Xingjian

Writing eases my suffering . . . writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence. — Gao Xingjian

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

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

Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love. — Gao Xingjian

Gao Xingjian Quotes About Literature

Literature remains an indispensable human activity, in which the reader and the writer are engaged of their own volition. Hence, literature has no duty to the masses or society, and ethical or moral pronouncements added by busybody critics are of no concern to the writer. — Gao Xingjian

In my view the time for rousing revolutionary literature has passed, because the revolution has already revolutionised itself to death and has left behind only bitterness and a sort of weariness, listlessness and even nausea. — Gao Xingjian

Literary revolution and revolutionary literature did not create a beautiful new world but instead divested literature of its basic nature, promoted violence, and, by resorting to linguistic violence, made a battlefield of this domain of spiritual freedom. — Gao Xingjian

Literature is subservient to nothing but truth. — Gao Xingjian

Gao Xingjian Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

Some distance away is a white azalea bush which stuns me with its stately beauty. This is pristine natural beauty. it is irrepressible, seeks no reward, and is without goal, a beauty derived neither from symbolism nor metaphor and needing neither analogies nor associations. — Gao Xingjian

Once the buttons are undone, you know how it'll all end. It's all in the game, there are no miracles. — Gao Xingjian

There are numerous layers to truth, and the simple and superficial statement of facts cannot satisfy the writer. — Gao Xingjian

If you want to do anything, do it now, without compromise or concession, because you have only one life. — Gao Xingjian

In the century that has just passed, many of the intellectual elite went mad. It was as if, with the death of God, everyone suddenly turned into a saviour who wanted either to annihilate the obsolete world order or to establish a utopia. Naturally, there were writers among those who went mad. The fact that they had knowledge did not exempt intellectuals: there is madness everywhere. When one loses control over one's self, the result is madness. — Gao Xingjian

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

Everyone has to have either this or that problem, if he can't find any problem, he loses all reason for living. — Gao Xingjian

You're safe only when you can't see anybody. — Gao Xingjian

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

Since it was announced that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has condemned my works and criticized them harshly. All of my works are now banned from getting into China or being published in China. What author would want to return to a country that banned his or her books? — Gao Xingjian

Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell. — Gao Xingjian

What is essential is whether it is perceived and not whether it exists. To exist and yet not to be perceived is the same as not exist. — Gao Xingjian

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

Soul Mountain, the story of one man’s quest for inner peace and freedom. — Gao Xingjian

When you're telling a story, you've got to give details. — Gao Xingjian

As a male writer, women are always what men pursue, and their world is always a mystery. So I always tried to present as many views as possible on women's worlds. — Gao Xingjian

Loneliness is a prerequisite for freedom. Freedom depends on the ability to reflect, and reflection can only begin when one is alone. — Gao Xingjian

You contemplate and you wander without any worries, between heaven and earth, in your own private world, and in this way you acquire supreme freedom. — Gao Xingjian

Young man, nature is not frightening, it's people who are frightening! You just need to get to know nature and it will become friendly. This creature known as man is of course highly intelligent, he's capable of manufacturing almost anything from rumours to test-tube babies and yet he destroys two to three species every day. This is the absurdity of man. — Gao Xingjian

When I came overseas, I realized that there are many ideologies and many trends, and it's also very hard to produce honest art and honest literature. I decided that I didn't want to follow any of these ideologies or trends, because that's also a kind of pressure that doesn't allow absolute freedom. So I decided that I was only going to produce works that were satisfactory to me, and that meant not following any trends and being anti-ideological. — Gao Xingjian

If everyone is a hero, then disasters and atrocities lose their meaning. It's only when certain people are heroes and others are not that these tragedies and disasters that mankind faces take on meaning. — Gao Xingjian

With the beginning of life, comes the thirst for truth, whereas the ability to lie is gradually acquired in the process of trying to stay alive. — Gao Xingjian

Maybe there isn't a God after all, maybe there's only a universe rotating by itself like a millstone. — Gao Xingjian

Reality is myself, reality is only the perception of this instant and it can't be related to another person. — Gao Xingjian

Men always look differently at women, even if it's not your intention it is wrongly interpreted as such. — Gao Xingjian

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

Life Lessons by Gao Xingjian

1. Gao Xingjian's work emphasizes the importance of individual freedom and autonomy, showing that it is possible to find personal liberation even in oppressive political systems.
2. His work also highlights the power of art to challenge oppressive social structures and to provide a platform for individual expression.
3. Gao Xingjian's work encourages readers to think critically about the world around them and to strive for personal liberation in the face of oppressive forces.