“La libertad no es un derecho del hombre que concede el cielo, y la libertad de soñar tampoco se adquiere desde el nacimiento: es una capacidad que hay que preservar, una conciencia, sobre todo porque las pesadillas no paran de perturbarla.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from One Man's Bible
“Although as an individual Gao had readily denounced the Chinese authorities for the events of 4 June in the French and Italian media, he refused to compromise his integrity as a writer. His stance angered both political sides.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from One Man's Bible
“Prior to that I had written many works but I was unable to present them for publication, in fact I had burned them all.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from One Man's Bible
“At the height of the Cultural Revolution, rather than risk having to face dire consequences for his accumulated writings, he burned several kilos of manuscripts (ten plays, and many short stories, poems, and essays). For him it was an ordeal to part with what he had written. Moreover, it took a long time to burn so much paper without creating smoke and arousing suspicions.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from One Man's Bible
“he was as if a “reborn” human being, a “fundamentalist” as a human being.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from One Man's Bible
“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, quote from One Man's Bible
“I did not think about what sort of people might read it. In fact, I was writing it for myself.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from One Man's Bible
“Another issue was language, the problem of expressing these themes in language and the problem of how much one can articulate in language.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from One Man's Bible
“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 her books?”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from One Man's Bible
Gao Xingjian
Born place: in Taizhou, Jiangsu, China
Born date January 4, 1940
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“I put the tip of the blade against my chest and drew downward over my heart. The pain was sharp and immediate, but it was shallow. I wasn’t hurt. The blood trickled down between my breasts like tickling fingers. The blood was very dark against the whiteness of my skin. Richard started towards me, and Verne caught him. “It’s her choice,” Verne said. “It’s not her. It’s Raina,” Richard said. But in a way he was wrong. Raina had finally found something that called to both of us. We both wanted him to suffer. We both felt betrayed. And neither of us had a right to it. We’d both betrayed him in our own ways. Words that I didn’t know spilled from my lips. “Your heart to mine, mine to yours. Lupa to your Ulfric. But not to your bed, nor you to mine.” I threw the knife into the ground so it stuck, thrumming. I could feel the blade in the earth as if I’d disturbed some large, sleeping beast. The power burst over me from the ground, from me, and something let loose in a liquid rush inside me. I was dizzy and on my knees without meaning to fall. I stared up at Richard, still struggling, and said, “Help me.” But it was too late. I felt the munin blow outward like a wind. And every man it touched caught the scent. I could almost feel their bodies react. I knew what Raina had done, and if it were to be her last night in the driver’s seat, she couldn’t have chosen better. Short of killing me, it was the perfect revenge. I fell to my knees, fighting not to finish the ritual, but I could feel them in the dark, eager. I was giving off scent, and it wasn’t just the blood. The words were pulled from my throat as if by a hand. Each word squeezed out until it hurt to speak. “Claim me again if you can, my Ulfric.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, quote from Blue Moon
“No es ninguna vergüenza no saber nada. La vergüenza es no tener ansias de aprender.”
― Alison Croggon, quote from The Naming
“William tell, William tell,
Take your arrow, grip it well,
There’s the apple– – aim for the middle– –
Oh well … you just missed by a little.”
― Shel Silverstein, quote from Falling Up
“No kiss, no embrace, could bring two people any closer than we are right now. The most intimate emotion two people can share is neither love nor desire but pain.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon
“Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also - if this isn't too grand a word - our tragedy.”
― Julian Barnes, quote from The Sense of an Ending
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Defiance
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The Luminaries
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