Gao Xingjian Quotes

Author Image

Gao Xingjian

Profession : Novelist

Birth : January 4, 1940

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

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

Gao Xingjian

I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.

Gao Xingjian

Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.

Gao Xingjian

When I first heard that I had won the prize, I thought that it was something for myself, that it was something personal, recognition of my writings. But there is such a strong reaction from Chinese people in particular. It's been very passionate, overwhelming and passionate, Chinese people from all over the world.

Gao Xingjian

Love is so holy, so confusing. It makes a man anxious, tormented. Love, how can I define it?

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

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

Experience has taught me that any kind of political grouping is oppressive. It's the blind mass that crushes the individual.

Gao Xingjian

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

Gao Xingjian

Literature is higher than politics, if not actually above politics.

Gao Xingjian

I was born Chinese, and I write in Chinese. I don't think there's any need to evade this... to a writer, as to a person, what matters is not his political label or his nationality, but whether he is a person and whether his work is worth looking at.

Gao Xingjian

A writer has to fully defend his rights and his own worth.

Gao Xingjian

When I lived in China, my works were already being banned, and I couldn't publish. In those days, when I was in China, I was writing for myself, so that's the process of writing for myself that was the most important thing.

Gao Xingjian

When I completed writing 'Soul Mountain,' I more or less closed the accounts with China for myself. I was 50 years old when I left, so China is already within me.

Gao Xingjian

The destruction of Chinese traditional culture didn't start in 1949. It started long before that, with the succession of revolutions. It was particularly bad during the Cultural Revolution, the destruction of traditional Chinese culture.

Gao Xingjian

Various political parties, even if they're in direct opposition with one another, still say they are the spokesperson for the people. The writer must speak his own words and not get mixed up with politics.

Gao Xingjian

Freedom is the basic prerequisite for writing.

Gao Xingjian

Literature transcends national boundaries, racial boundaries. It goes deep into the issues that concern all human beings. That is why, when people read Greek tragedy - it doesn't matter who reads it - they are still moved by it.

Gao Xingjian

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 existence.

Gao Xingjian