Gao Xingjian: Quotes about life

Gao Xingjian is Chinese novelist and playwright. Explore interesting quotes on life.

Gao Xingjian: 44 quotes0 likes

“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.”

“The writer is an ordinary man, not a spokesman for the people, and that literature can only be the voice of one individual. Writing that becomes an ode to a country, the standard of a nation, the voice of a party… loses its nature—it is no longer literature. Writers do not set out to be published, but to know themselves. Although Kafka or Pessoa resorted to language, it was not in order to change the world. I, myself, believe in what I call cold literature: a literature of flight for one's life, a literature that is not utilitarian, but a spiritual self-preservation in order to avoid being stifled by society. I believe in a literature of the moment, for the living. You have to know how to use freedom. If you use it in exchange for something else, it vanishes.”

Interview by Jean-Luc Douin http://web.archive.org/web/20130421061108/http://my.opera.com/PRC/blog/?startidx=560

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

Gao Xingjian book Soul Mountain

Source: Soul Mountain (1989), ch. 12, p. 70

“Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural.”

Gao Xingjian book Soul Mountain

Source: Soul Mountain (1989), ch. 80, p. 503

“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.”

Gao Xingjian book Soul Mountain

Source: Soul Mountain (1989), ch. 8, p. 50