Gao Xingjian Quotes

Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.

The difference between God and Reggie Jackson is that God doesn't think he's Reggie Jackson.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.

People think I'm smarter than I am.

There are a lot of smart people being really thoughtful and writing really interesting things, but that isn't what I want to do. It's never felt like what I've been called to do. And I have to risk sounding really arrogant when I say that because I've gone to Ivy League schools and been privileged in all these ways in the world of ideas, but I'm not as smart as you think. I'm not really depending on what I learned in college to write my books. Those were just parts of my life experience.

I know I'm not a self-indulgent idiot; I also know I'm not the second coming of Deepak Chopra. If I had believed either of those, or both, as some people do when they get famous, that's when the mental illness arrives.

For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.

I am just one human being.

I think it's one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates.

You have to take your ego out of it and say, do I want people to be obsequious to me or do I want to write good books? If it's the latter, you have to take criticism. It's annoying, but that's how to do good stuff; listen to other people.

You have to make the effort with children. You can't have them thinking that I reckon I'm special, otherwise they'll start thinking they're special. I want them to feel normal for as long as possible because God knows they'll reach an age when they'll be told they're not.

I'd love to think that I'm a super human being, but I'm not.

I don't think of myself as being invincible anymore.

Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn't. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.

I will take a back seat when I know my fame is dipping. I'm not delusional.

People have always thought of me as being something, but I'm just a human being like everyone else.

I have spent seventy years finding out that I am not God.

I'm not great enough to be humble.

Let no man glory in the greatness of his mind, but rather keep watch o'er his wits.

My ego and my vanities have nothing to do with comedy.

Our age-old faith in divine male intuition is no longer good enough. Reality check, fellas: We are not gods. We are men. Let's own it.

The older I get, the more I feel that's all we are: a big bunch of feelings and instincts all wrapped up in some brief encounter with intellect.