Gao Xingjian quotes

Gao Xingjian is a Chinese-French novelist, playwright, and critic, internationally recognized for his literary contributions. His works explore themes of exile, individuality, and the search for meaning. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his innovative and influential writing. Here are 57 of his quotes:

The sand murmurs that it wants to swallow everything. (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. View quote
Gao Xingjian
Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural. View quote
Gao Xingjian
Life is probably a tangle of love and hate permanently knotted together. View quote
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. View quote
Gao Xingjian
A good man never fights with a woman. View quote
Gao Xingjian
Indeed, loft aspirations produce ideas. View quote
Gao Xingjian
I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly. View quote
Gao Xingjian
When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice. View quote
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. View quote
Gao Xingjian
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)
If you want to do anything, do it now, without compromise or concession, because you have only one life. View quote
Gao Xingjian
Love is so holy, so confusing. It makes a man anxious, tormented. Love, how can I define it? View quote
Gao Xingjian
Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience. View quote
Gao Xingjian
They say it only takes an instant to have a dream; a dream can be compressed into hardtack. View quote
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. View quote
Gao Xingjian
Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell. View quote
Gao Xingjian
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. View quote
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. View quote
Gao Xingjian
Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature. View quote
Gao Xingjian
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)
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. View quote
Gao Xingjian
Experience has taught me that any kind of political grouping is oppressive. It's the blind mass that crushes the individual. View quote
Gao Xingjian
Not knowing what one is looking for is pure agony. Too much analytical thinking, too much logic, too many meanings! Life has no logic, so why does there have to be logic to explain what it means? Also, what is logic? I think I may need to break away from analytical thinking; this is the cause of all my anxieties. View quote
Gao Xingjian
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. View quote
Gao Xingjian