Geling Yan Quotes

Geling Yan is a Chinese-American author and screenwriter.

✵ 16. November 1958

Geling Yan photo

Rico Shen / CC BY-SA 4.0

Geling Yan: 13 quotes0 likes

Famous Geling Yan Quotes

“Any suffering registered in your mind makes the emotion deeper. Maybe as a writer, I am constantly looking for tragedy.”

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

“I like to play with words. In English, there's only one or two ways to say something; in Chinese there are 30 ways.”

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

“From early on, I was nourished in a literary way. I didn't realize that there was a writer already living in me”

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

“With books or film I want to commemorate our youth and the sacrifices they made. No matter how bitter the time was, there is always something beautiful. I want to satisfy my nostalgia and hope [my work] is touching enough to move audiences who may not have the same experiences.”

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

“Good stories will keep haunting me for years. They will mature and want to be born. I can't help it.”

Source: "Yan Geling" in South China Morning Post https://www.scmp.com/article/476179/yan-geling (31 October 2004)

“I don’t consider myself a successful screenwriter. I write screenplays because I have no choice. Often I’m simply the director’s last resort. I think that good novel-writing emphasizes characterization. It’s the personality that makes a good movie or novel character unforgettable.”

Source: Interview with the Big Thrill

Geling Yan Quotes

“It’s frustrating, that you know what good literature is but you cannot get it totally right.”

Source: "Chinese writer finds freedom in English" in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-literature-yan-interview/chinese-writer-finds-freedom-in-english-idUSTRE53M00D20090423 (22 April 2009)

“I consider myself as having two selves. One self is Chinese and more delicate, more subtle, in terms of language. But the English self is young and audacious, and I say what I want to say.”

Source: "Chinese writer finds freedom in English" in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-literature-yan-interview/chinese-writer-finds-freedom-in-english-idUSTRE53M00D20090423 (22 April 2009)

“My dream is to write with both pens, in English and Chinese. I want to be more truthful and more straightforward when I write in English.”

Source: "Chinese writer finds freedom in English" in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-literature-yan-interview/chinese-writer-finds-freedom-in-english-idUSTRE53M00D20090423 (22 April 2009)

“Death is not completely tragic, perhaps it will be the completion of a redemption, or the beginning of a rebirth.”

Source: "Yan Geling: I Am Also A Person In The Cave" https://www.bannedbook.org/en/bnews/lifebaike/20211010/1635954.html (10 October 2021)

“Of course, the vision of many works, such as the sense of picture and imagery, is actually unconscious by the writer. If the writer is conscious, he will write very artificial things.”

Source: "Yan Geling: I Am Also A Person In The Cave" https://www.bannedbook.org/en/bnews/lifebaike/20211010/1635954.html (10 October 2021)

“It’s always challenging to portray foreign characters in a novel that is told mainly from a Chinese perspective or, you may say, in a Chinese story.”

Source: "What War Does to Human Hearts: Interview with Geling Yan" http://www.chinaww2.com/2016/04/30/what-war-does-to-human-hearts-interview-with-geling-yan/ (30 April 2016)

“It’s frustrating seeing things lost in translation. Some expressions are just so Chinese, or so English, you have to switch your thinking to English in order to write it with spontaneity and naturally.”

Source: "Chinese writer finds freedom in English" in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-literature-yan-interview/chinese-writer-finds-freedom-in-english-idUSTRE53M00D20090423 (22 April 2009)

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