Mo Yan Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

Am I drunk?" he asked Crewcut. "You're not drunk, Boss," Crewcut replied. "How could a superior individual like you be drunk? People around here who get drunk are the dregs of society, illiterates, uncouth people. Highbrow folks, those of the 'spring snow,' cannot get drunk. You're a highbrow, therefore you cannot be drunk.

Mo Yan
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
People who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature.

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

Mo Yan
Over decades that seem but a moment in time, lines of scarlet figures shuttled among the sorghum stalks to weave a vast human tapestry. They killed, they looted, and they defended their country in a valiant, stirring ballet that makes us unfilial descendants who now occupy the land pale by comparison.

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

Mo Yan
The sun, a red wheel, was sinking slowly in the west. Besides being spectacularly beautiful, the early-summer sunset was exceedingly soft and gentle: black mulberry leaves turned as red as roses; pristine white acacia petals shed an enshrouding pale-green aura. Mild evening breezes made both the mulberry leaves and the acacia petals dance and whirl, filling the woods with a soft rustle.

Mo Yan
A writer writes what he knows, in ways that are natural to him.

Mo Yan
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
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