Quotes for All
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 is subservient to nothing but truth. Gao Xingjian
In my view the time for rousing revolutionary literature has passed, because the revolution has already revolutionised itself to death and has left behind only bitterness and a sort of weariness, listlessness and even nausea. Gao Xingjian
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 … Read more
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
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 … Read more
Since it was announced that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has condemned my works and criticized them harshly. All of my works are now banned from getting into China or being published in China. What author would want to return to a country that banned his or … Read more
To subvert is not the aim of literature, its value lies in discovering and revealing what is rarely known, little known, thought to be known but in fact not very well known of the truth of the human world. It would seem that truth is the unassailable and most basic quality of literature. 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
Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature. Gao Xingjian