Mo Yan Quotes

#1. When Communism has been realized, everyone will be a novelist.

Mo Yan

#2. And the chewing and swallowing imbue me with an unadulterated sense of donkey delight.

Mo Yan

#3. Finally, she mused that human existence is as brief as the life of autumn grass, so what was there to fear from taking chances with your life?

Mo Yan

#4. When people are driven nearly mad, they are imbued with superhuman strength and are capable of almost supernatural deeds.

Mo Yan

#5. I have always been independent.

Mo Yan

#6. A writer writes what he knows, in ways that are natural to him.

Mo Yan

#7. I'd discovered that the range of beauty in breasts is wide; while one should never lightly say that a pair is ugly, one can easily say that a pair of breasts is beautiful. Hedgehogs are beautiful sometimes; so are baby pigs.

Mo Yan

#8. If an earthworm in the ground won't starve to death, then neither will we, the working class." He

Mo Yan

#9. Some may want to shout on the street, but we should tolerate those who hide in their rooms and use literature to voice their opinions.

Mo Yan

#10. I write about my region, the countryside in which I grew up.

Mo Yan

#11. I am also well aware that literature only has a minimal influence on political disputes or economic crises in the world, but its significance to human beings is ancient.

Mo Yan

#12. I know what real courage is, and I understand true compassion.

Mo Yan

#13. Always choose life. A demeaned life is better than the best death.

Mo Yan

#14. A sudden cloud formation of birds was swallowed up by the moon, and he was just as suddenly penned in by four walls - the demons' pen.

Mo Yan

#15. Possibly because I've lived so much of my life in difficult circumstances, I think I have a more profound understanding of life.

Mo Yan

#16. My works are Chinese literature, which is part of world literature. They show the life of Chinese people as well as the country's unique culture and folk customs.

Mo Yan

#17. Loneliness and hunger were my fortunes of creation.

Mo Yan

#18. When someone forces me to do something I don't do it.

Mo Yan

#19. What a shame for a man like him to be born during peacetime. If he'd been born only a few decades earlier, he'd have worn the mantle of hero,

Mo Yan

#20. When literature exists, perhaps we do not notice how important it is, but when it does not exist, our lives become coarsened and brutal. For this reason, I am proud of my profession, but also aware of its importance.

Mo Yan

#21. There are people who walk mules and people walk horses, but I never thought there were people who walk cops.

Mo Yan

#22. For a country boy, poor as I was, whose constant worry was to be able to have enough to eat, the Army guaranteed one's survival.

Mo Yan

#23. Are women really wonderful things? Maybe they are. Yes, women are wonderful things, but when all is said and done, they aren't really things

Mo Yan

#24. I heard so many stories from Gaomi's peasants that I had an irrepressible urge to write them down. Today, Gaomi's peasants know that they have become famous around the world through my writings, but I think they are a little puzzled by this.

Mo Yan

#25. Wind, then rain, and then the blue sky.

Mo Yan

#26. A writer should always bravely face life, risking death and mutilation in order to dethrone an emperor.

Mo Yan

#27. People who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature.

Mo Yan

#28. Where there's life, death is inevitable. Dying's easy; it's living that's hard. The harder it gets, the stronger the will to live. And the greater the fear of death, the greater the struggle to keep on living.

Mo Yan

#29. A writer's place in a nation's literary history cannot be judged by whether or not he is capable of writing a book as heavy as a brick. That must rest on his contributions to the development and enrichment of that nation's language.

Mo Yan

#30. A writer should bury his thoughts deep and convey them through the characters in his novel.

Mo Yan

#31. Only by recalling a dream is an insomniac sure he's slept.

Mo Yan

#32. The cliche that sea dry up and rocks rot away, but the heart never changes is nothing but a beautiful fantasy.

Mo Yan

#33. Glory, causes, careers, and love mean nothing on an empty stomach. Because of food, I lost my self-respect; because of food, I suffered the humiliation of a lowly cur; and because of food I took up creative writing, with a vengeance.

Mo Yan

#34. I think that China has many outstanding authors, and their great works should also be recognised by the world.

Mo Yan

#35. Heavens never seals off all the exits

Mo Yan

#36. I think writers write for their consciences, they write for their own true audiences, for their souls.

Mo Yan

#37. A person can change the way he talks, but not the way he sneezes. A person can turn single-fold eyelids into double folds, but the greatest plastic surgeon alive cannot change the look in a man's eyes.

Mo Yan

#38. As a child who grew up in a grassy field, enjoying little formal education, I know virtually nothing about literary theories and have had to rely solely upon my own experiences and intuitive understanding of the world to write.

Mo Yan

#39. One of the biggest problems in literature is the lack of subtlety.

Mo Yan

#40. The dead are noble, the living worthless.

Mo Yan

#41. A writer should express criticism and indignation at the dark side of society and the ugliness of human nature, but we should not use one uniform expression.

Mo Yan

#42. I sometimes think that there is a link between the decline in humanity and the increase in prosperity and comfort. Property and comfort are what people seek, but the costs to character are often terrifying.

Mo Yan

#43. Dear brother," Number Two replied, "I can eat shit, I just don't like the taste.

Mo Yan

#44. The act of giving voice to this spiritual suffering is, in my view, the sacred duty of the writer.

Mo Yan

#45. No person writes to win awards.

Mo Yan

#46. My grandmother once told me that while there is no suffering a person cannot endure, there is plenty of good fortune one can never hope to enjoy. I believe that.

Mo Yan

#47. I'll continue on the path I've been taking, feet on the ground, describing people's lives, describing people's emotions, writing from the standpoint of the ordinary people.

Mo Yan