Gao Xingjian Quotes

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize.

It would nice to live in a world where art can just be art!

I don't care what people do. I don't care how people remember my albums. I do them for my own reasons.

I don't play roles everybody likes. I'd rather have a career I'm proud of. Like everyone else, I need to eat. But I'm a very unbusinesslike person, and I keep my price low. I'm not a mass product. I'm not everyone's cup of tea.

The dean of the American Film Institute has written that I'm one of the very few auteurs in America. I've had freedom for 40 years to create art that is totally personal and is what I believe in.

The nation that complacently and fearfully allows its artists and writers to become suspected rather than respected is no longer regarded as a nation possessed with humor or depth.

There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.

I only write music for myself, I don't try and appeal to anyone else.

Art has nothing to do with politics. It is the freest thing in the world.

I coined this term 'freedom thru limitation' back in the '90s because I was sick of art being treated like pop, because of this boring 'anything can be art' theory.

My allegiance was always to the act. I wanted them to be happy. I wasn't owned by a magazine or a record label. And I was a very naughty boy to boot!

I left because I could no longer make records that sounded less and less like me. I tried to please people instead of believing in my own strength, until the only thing I could do was walk away.

There's poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. I don't like doing what people expect me to do.

Art is art. Politics is politics. It's very hard to get them together.

Prince was one of the best people I've met. He didn't care about the big system. I was always like, at any time, Prince could write a No. 1 song because he's that talented, but he chooses to do what he wants. I respect that. He actually helped me through a lot of situations with his knowledge.

The critics are not writers - they're not a part of the creative process; therefore, they should not influence how I go about doing my next bit of work.

A lot of my stuff just wasn't saleable. I still don't do private or corporate commissions. It becomes like interior design. I don't enjoy it. The process makes me feel physically sick.

I just make music that I love. I'm kind of selfish when I make music. I'm like, 'Do I like this?'

I would love for my existence as an artist to be completely about my art - not about my social media, or what I do vs what's cool right now, or even whether or not I sound okay in an interview.

Really I've just gotta be making really great music that I love and not worrying too much about what other people are gonna think about it.

Young people have realised that an artist is in charge of what they're doing - this crazy cynicism that artists were puppets has disappeared.

I have a feeling that art is something you do for yourself, and that any time you turn your decisions over to someone else you're postponing at best, your own development. The atmosphere of the workshop should be that of trying out one's own work and accepting the signals from others but not accepting the dictation of others because that is a violation of the spirit of art. Art can't be done by somebody else, it has got to be done by the artist.

Even if people don't love it, I made exactly the piece of art that I wanted to make. It's super fearless - which is exactly how I feel right now. I am in a really good place.

The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work.

It's so easy to get into the same routine. A novel every two years; perhaps, improving technique. But I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in doing something fundamentally important--and therefore, it needs time. And what I've been doing, really, is avoiding this pressure to get into the habit of one novel a year. This is what is expected of novelists. And I have never been really too much concerned with doing what is expected of novelists, or writers, or artists. I want to do what I believe is important.