“Reading this chapter is optional but as you’ve read it you’ve read it.” — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature. — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
Literature hasn't come up with any new themes. The literature of all different times - it's still dealing with how one resolves… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
To subvert is not the aim of literature, its value lies in discovering and revealing what is rarely known, little known, thought… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
I hadn't originally intended to do any reading, what if I did read one book more or one book less, whether I… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
In the history of literature there are many great enduring works which were not published in the lifetimes of the authors. If… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
Since it was announced that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has condemned my works… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
Literature remains an indispensable human activity, in which the reader and the writer are engaged of their own volition. Hence, literature has… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
Literary revolution and revolutionary literature did not create a beautiful new world but instead divested literature of its basic nature, promoted violence,… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
In my view the time for rousing revolutionary literature has passed, because the revolution has already revolutionised itself to death and has… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
Literature transcends national boundaries, racial boundaries. It goes deep into the issues that concern all human beings. That is why, when people… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
If literature is to transcend political interference and return to being a testimony of man and his existential predicament, it needs first… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
Man tends to think that he is a creator, that he is like God. This is especially true of intellectuals, and in… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share Image
“When a man gets to middle age shouldn’t he look for a peaceful and stable existence, find a not-too-demanding sort of a job, stay… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
Literature transcends national boundaries, racial boundaries. It goes deep into the issues that concern all human beings. That is why, when people read Greek… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
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… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
If you're not perfectly conscious of yourself, that self can be tyrannical; in relationship to others, anyone can become a tyrant. That's why no… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
Since childhood, I'd dreamed of making a film, but producers in France and Germany wanted to make commercial films with chinoiserie. I refused. — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
Literature hasn't come up with any new themes. The literature of all different times - it's still dealing with how one resolves issues of… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
“Yours is much worse than Eastern! You’ve slapped together travel notes, moralistic ramblings, feelings, notes, jottings, untheoretical discussions, unfable-like fables, copied out some folk… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
The enterprise of describing something in language that has never been described before is a very difficult thing to do. When you decide to… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
When I completed writing 'Soul Mountain,' I more or less closed the accounts with China for myself. I was 50 years old when I… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell. — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
If, while observing the boundless universe, the writer is able to scrutinise his own self as well as others, the resulting incisiveness of his… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
“At the height of the Cultural Revolution, rather than risk having to face dire consequences for his accumulated writings, he burned several kilos of… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
Language is inherently not concerned with logic. As an expression of the psychological activities of humankind, it simply follows a linear process as it… — Gao Xingjian Copy Share
