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Quotes from Soul Mountain — Gao Xingjian

born 1940 China

← All quotes by Gao Xingjian

11 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)

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

Soul Mountain (1989)

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

Soul Mountain (1989)

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)

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)

Attribution

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