Liao Yiwu famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Two years ago I was on the train from Berlin to Frankfurt when I heard that the Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to my close friend, the writer Liu Xiaobo, who is imprisoned in China. To me it was confirmation that universal values and a moral code do exist, and that the point of the Nobel Prize is to encourage writers to stand up for this moral code. Last Thursday I was once again on the train from Berlin to Frankfurt when I heard that the Nobel Prize for Literature had gone to Mo Yan. He is a state poet. I am utterly bewildered. Do these universal values not exist after all?
-- Liao Yiwu

#Literature #Moral #Close Friends
To me the truth comes first and then the literature. We in China are dealing with a dictatorial system and we writers have to take a stance on it.
-- Liao Yiwu

#Literature
If you are going to stick to the truth then you need to keep your distance from the Chinese government and indeed to any form of politics, including the politics of democratic countries.
-- Liao Yiwu

#Country #Distance #Chinese
I have been living in Germany for one year and my impression is that people here are on a quest for the truth, they have come to terms with the injustices of the past, there are memorial centers and remembrance projects. Germany is my spiritual home.
-- Liao Yiwu

#Spiritual #Home #Past
It is something wonderful when one can love another author. That happens so rarely, without any kind of misgivings that authors often have between each other. It is a good fortune, when you can adore, when you can love, when you can find something so magnificent.
-- Liao Yiwu

#Kind #Wonderful #Adore
A good novelist loves all of his characters, he lives in them, even in those who commit or must commit terrible acts.
-- Liao Yiwu

#Character #Terrible #Commit

Intimate relationships are a gold mine for literature to explore, to understand, to describe.
I like my coffee with cream and my literature with optimism.
For a murderous blow let murderous blow atone.
No moral system can rest solely on authority.
Money has no moral opinions.
The fundamental premise of liberalism is the moral incapacity of the American people.
I have very few friends. I have a handful of close friends, and I have my family, and I haven't known life to be any happier.
Joseph F. Smith probably authorized Apostles Clawson and Cowley to marry their plural wives after the second Manifesto of 1904, since he did authorize a close friend to perform one plural marriage as late as 1906, and o.k.'d another one that occurred in 1907.
I have a very close friendship with the skaters.
A writer's work may be a coded autobiography, but only a very close friend could decipher it.

Liao Yiwu famous quotes

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