Gao Xingjian Quotes

I'm really interested in how we understand each other - and whether we can understand each other.

Smaller incidents in my life made me realize that language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.

Language is our way of communicating what we want and who we are.

There is so much to be learned from listening to people's hopes, frustrations, and points of view

The living tongue that tells the word, the living ear that hears it, bind and bond us in the communion we long for in the silence of our inner solitude.

Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all.

Life is a matter of dealing with other people, in little matters and cataclysmic ones, and that means a series of conversations.

And yet, words are the passkeys to our souls. Without them, we can't really share the enormity of our lives.

We all really need to listen to each other, including to the boring bits.

I can't imagine a mental life, a spiritual existence, not inextricably bound up with language of a formal, mediated nature. Telling stories, choosing an appropriate language with which to tell the story: This seems to me quintessentially human, one of the great adventures of our species.

We spend our time sending messages to each other, talking and trying to listen at the same time, exchanging information. This seems to be our most urgent biological function; it is what we do with our lives.

That's why I've never thought of retiring because I do it all the time whether on the stage or off. I found that in a precarious situation, a smile is the shortest distance between people. When one needs to reach out for sympathy or a link with people, what better way is there?

We say to others only what we need to hear

Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?

If you want to be a good conversationalist, be a good listener. To be interesting, be interested.

I spend most of my life just listening to people.

Conversation is a game of circles.

If you're listening to music, then the music is your friend; or if you're with a person, then that person can be your friend because you're communicating.

As humans we speak one language.

To communicate is our chief business; society and friendship our chief delights; and reading, not to acquire knowledge, not to earn a living, but to extend our intercourse beyond our own time and province.

I'm glad I understand that while language is a gift, listening is a responsibility. (U.S. poet and writer, 1943- )

Everyone, he went on, speaks a language he does not understand, but which now and then is understood by others. That is enough to permit one to exist and at least to be misunderstood.

We need to start listening to each other and getting out of our own little labeled bubbles.

Sometimes, language is the sound of longing

Our language is the reflection of ourselves.