Quotes from Mo Yan

Heavens never seals off all the exits

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.

angst is het enige dat tussen de mens en de vrijheid staat

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.

Don't swallow a scythe if your stomach isn't curved

Prosperity and comfort are what people seek, but the costs to character are often terrifying

They say officials love to serve the people, so why do they treat the common folk as enemies? Heavy taxes and under-the-table levies, like ravenous beasts, force the farmers to head for the hills. The common folk have a bellyful of grievances, but they dare not let them out. For the moment they open their mouths, electric prods close them fast.

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.

I have nothing but admiration for myself as a youngster; I was a force to be reckoned with then, a much finer specimen than I am now. As kids, we had little meat on our bones; we were sticklike figures with big rounded bellies, the skin stretched so taut it was nearly transparent — you could just about see our intestines twist and coil on the other side. Our necks were so long and thin it was a miracle they could support our heavy heads.

Surrounded by progress, I feel a nagging sense of our species' regression.

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

run, run, you can't get away, the monk can run but the temple will never get away!

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.

Pero, cómo pudo Lu Wenli irse con el profesor Liu? -pregunté-. ¡Es inconcebible! -Acaso era concebible meterle la pelota en la boca de un requetazo? -replicó He Zhiwu. Indudablemente, eso formaba parte de las cosas inconcebibles, lo que demuestra que los asuntos de este mundo sufren infinitos cambios y evoluciones, que la suerte reúne a las parejas predestinadas a través de las más extrañas e imprevisibles coincidencias. No hay nada imposible.

There are times when everything on earth spits out the stench of human blood

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

WITH THIS BOOK I respectfully invoke the heroic, aggrieved souls wandering in the boundless bright-red sorghum fields of my hometown. As your unfilial son, I am prepared to carve out my heart, marinate it in soy sauce, have it minced and placed in three bowls, and lay it out as an offering in a field of sorghum. Partake of it in good health!

Old Du," he said, "what would people think if you started a fight with a blind man? We all live in the same village. We win some arguments and we lose others, but it's always a matter of someone's bowl smashing into someone else's plate, and that's how it goes. Up there on Changbai Mountain, it's no easy matter to run into a fellow villager, so you feel as if you're with family!

Creí que lo habrías olvidado. -Imposible-dije-. De los cincuenta en adelante, uno no tiene memoria para las cosas recientes, pero las del pasado las recuerda cada vez mejor. -A mí también me pasa-dijo ella-. Hasta sueño con las cosas de entonces.

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.

During breaks out in the field, when our grumbling stomachs sent a sour taste up into our mouths, our greatest entertainment was talking among ourselves about food. We, along with some of the other field hands, would trade descriptions of delicious foods we had eaten or heard about. It was truly food for the soul. The speakers would invariably have us all drooling.

Todo el mundo sabía que las balas no tienen ojos, que las bombas no son muy dadas a pedir disculpas y que los soldados son como tigres que han bajado de la montaña, tigres que no son precisamente vegetarianos.

You incompetent moron, can't you even handle a run-of-the-mill truck driver? If the forty thieves ever showed up, they'd probably trick you out of your balls.

Los grandes canallas tienen algo de héroes y los grandes héroes tienen algo de canallas.