Gao Xingjian Quotes

Every character is asking: 'What's my place? Why am I here? I don't want the answer to be 'Just because.' You find your own purpose. Each finds the reason to be here and how to contribute.

Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.

Everyone faces the challenge of finding meaning to their suffering.

Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.

'Do I have a purpose.' Right. And of course you do. Otherwise, you wouldn't be on Earth. I really strongly believe that if we're here, it's for a reason.

A Problem Is really just a solution in need of a reason to exist.

All life is a struggle in the dark.

Life is a series of problems.

I found the purpose of my existence, and also the purpose of my circumstance. There's a purpose for why you're in the fire.

You can learn so much from bad things. I feel boring. I feel like, Why is everything so easy for me? I can't wait for something crazy to f***ing happen to me. Just life. I want someone to f*** me over! Do you know what I mean?

I've always been drawn to stories and characters facing some sort of struggle against forces beyond our control, be it love, loss, betrayal.

There is nothing without reason.

I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason.

A day merely survived is no cause for celebration.

When you know your reason for existence, it should effect the decisions you make.

I have to have a meaning in my life. If I roam around without some meaning in my life, I'm in deep and serious trouble. I can't, I just can't exist.

The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.

The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life? That you are here - that life exists and identity, that the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

The subject of pain is the business I am in - to give meaning and shape to frustration and suffering. The existence of pain cannot be denied. I propose no remedies or excuses.

Life was a storm to wander through.

To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.

...Because what's the meaning of doing dishes if you're not driven by something beyond necessity.

Life is very hard, isn't it? It does kill you, after all.

To work is to live without dying.