Life is fragile, yet to obstinately struggle is natural. Gao Xingjian More Quotes by Gao Xingjian More Quotes From 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. Gao Xingjian language listening needs Literature remains an indispensable human activity, in which the reader and the writer are engaged of their own volition. Hence, literature has no duty to the masses or society, and ethical or moral pronouncements added by busybody critics are of no concern to the writer. Gao Xingjian ethical moral literature There are numerous layers to truth, and the simple and superficial statement of facts cannot satisfy the writer. Gao Xingjian layers simple facts The enterprise of describing something in language that has never been described before is a very difficult thing to do. When you decide to do away with old cliches or old phraseologies, and to come up with a new way of saying something, it's extremely difficult. Gao Xingjian cliche language way If, while observing the boundless universe, the writer is able to scrutinise his own self as well as others, the resulting incisiveness of his observations will far surpass objective descriptions of reality. Gao Xingjian self writing reality 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. Gao Xingjian distance symbolism white 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. Gao Xingjian green eye snow 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. Gao Xingjian essentials When I came overseas, I realized that there are many ideologies and many trends, and it's also very hard to produce honest art and honest literature. I decided that I didn't want to follow any of these ideologies or trends, because that's also a kind of pressure that doesn't allow absolute freedom. So I decided that I was only going to produce works that were satisfactory to me, and that meant not following any trends and being anti-ideological. Gao Xingjian literature pressure art I decided that I did not want to follow any of these ideologies or trends, because these also exerted a kind of pressure, and obstructed absolute creative freedom. Gao Xingjian trends creative want You contemplate and you wander without any worries, between heaven and earth, in your own private world, and in this way you acquire supreme freedom. Gao Xingjian worry heaven world A good man never fights with a woman. Gao Xingjian good-man fighting men 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 differences reading book When you're telling a story, you've got to give details. Gao Xingjian details stories giving Man tends to think that he is a creator, that he is like God. This is especially true of intellectuals, and in the last century, intellectuals tended to forget that they were like everyone else. Writing this book was a description of man going from a state of God back to a state of man, back to being a normal person. Gao Xingjian writing men book Language is inherently not concerned with logic. As an expression of the psychological activities of humankind, it simply follows a linear process as it seeks actualisation. Moreover, it does not obey the objective concepts of time and space that belong to the physical world. When the discussion of time and space is imported into linguistic art from scientific aims and research methods, that linguistic art is entirely reduced to trifling pseudo-philosophical issues. Gao Xingjian philosophical issues art Literature is subservient to nothing but truth. Gao Xingjian subservient literature If literature is to transcend political interference and return to being a testimony of man and his existential predicament, it needs first to break away from ideology. To be without "isms," is to return to the individual and to return to viewing the world through the eyes of the writer, an individual who relies on his own perceptions and does not act as a spokesman for the people. The people already have rulers and election campaigners speaking in their name. Gao Xingjian eye names men Literary revolution and revolutionary literature did not create a beautiful new world but instead divested literature of its basic nature, promoted violence, and, by resorting to linguistic violence, made a battlefield of this domain of spiritual freedom. Gao Xingjian literature spiritual beautiful 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. Gao Xingjian alive trying lying
