Mo Yan Quotes

#1. I think writers write for their consciences, they write for their own true audiences, for their souls. - Author: Mo Yan

#2. Wind, then rain, and then the blue sky. - Author: Mo Yan

#3. A writer should always bravely face life, risking death and mutilation in order to dethrone an emperor. - Author: Mo Yan

#4. People who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature. - Author: Mo Yan

#5. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#6. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#7. A writer should bury his thoughts deep and convey them through the characters in his novel. - Author: Mo Yan

#8. Only by recalling a dream is an insomniac sure he's slept. - Author: Mo Yan

#9. The cliche that sea dry up and rocks rot away, but the heart never changes is nothing but a beautiful fantasy. - Author: Mo Yan

#10. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#11. I think that China has many outstanding authors, and their great works should also be recognised by the world. - Author: Mo Yan

#12. Heavens never seals off all the exits - Author: Mo Yan

#13. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#14. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#15. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#16. One of the biggest problems in literature is the lack of subtlety. - Author: Mo Yan

#17. The dead are noble, the living worthless. - Author: Mo Yan

#18. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#19. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#20. Dear brother," Number Two replied, "I can eat shit, I just don't like the taste. - Author: Mo Yan

#21. The act of giving voice to this spiritual suffering is, in my view, the sacred duty of the writer. - Author: Mo Yan

#22. No person writes to win awards. - Author: Mo Yan

#23. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#24. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#25. Always choose life. A demeaned life is better than the best death. - Author: Mo Yan

#26. And the chewing and swallowing imbue me with an unadulterated sense of donkey delight. - Author: Mo Yan

#27. 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? - Author: Mo Yan

#28. When people are driven nearly mad, they are imbued with superhuman strength and are capable of almost supernatural deeds. - Author: Mo Yan

#29. I have always been independent. - Author: Mo Yan

#30. A writer writes what he knows, in ways that are natural to him. - Author: Mo Yan

#31. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#32. If an earthworm in the ground won't starve to death, then neither will we, the working class." He - Author: Mo Yan

#33. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#34. I write about my region, the countryside in which I grew up. - Author: Mo Yan

#35. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#36. I know what real courage is, and I understand true compassion. - Author: Mo Yan

#37. When Communism has been realized, everyone will be a novelist. - Author: Mo Yan

#38. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#39. Possibly because I've lived so much of my life in difficult circumstances, I think I have a more profound understanding of life. - Author: Mo Yan

#40. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#41. Loneliness and hunger were my fortunes of creation. - Author: Mo Yan

#42. When someone forces me to do something I don't do it. - Author: Mo Yan

#43. 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, - Author: Mo Yan

#44. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#45. There are people who walk mules and people walk horses, but I never thought there were people who walk cops. - Author: Mo Yan

#46. 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. - Author: Mo Yan

#47. 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 - Author: Mo Yan