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Gao Xingjian Quotes

born 1940 China

Gao Xingjian (pronounced [káu ɕĭŋ tɕiɛ̂n]; Chinese: 高行健; pinyin: Gāo Xíngjiàn; Wade-Giles: Kao Hsing-chien; born January 4, 1940) is a Chinese-born novelist, playwright, and critic. An émigré to France, Gao was granted the French citizenship in 1997.

China
Nobel laureates
Novelists
Painters
Playwrights

Also known as: Gao xingjian

Random Gao Xingjian quote

18 quotes

Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together.

Soul Mountain (1989)

When God talks to humans he doesn’t want humans to hear his voice.

Soul Mountain (1989)

Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural.

Soul Mountain (1989)

The sand murmurs that it wants to swallow everything.

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (2005)

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

Soul Mountain (1989)

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

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (2005)

Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.

Soul Mountain (1989)

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

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (2005)

She says she doesn’t know what to do! But he says coldly that he knows what he wants to do, but he can’t.

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (2005)

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.

Soul Mountain (1989)

A good man never fights with a woman.

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (2005)

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.

Soul Mountain (1989)

Indeed, loft aspirations produce ideas.

Soul Mountain (1989)

The 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.

Soul Mountain (1989)

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.

Soul Mountain (1989)

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.

Soul Mountain (1989)

Grandfather, when you saw the tiger were you scared? Bad people scare me, not tigers.
Grandfather, have you ever run into bad people?
There aren’t many tigers but lots of bad people, only you can’t shoot people.

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (2005)

If you ask, Grandmother, what did you say? she will look up absentmindedly and, after a while, say, Oh, you're back from school? Are you hungry? There are sweet potatoes in the bamboo steamer. When she chatters it's best not to interrupt.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Gao Xingjian (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.