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Kóbó Abe Quotes

Kōbō Abe , pen name of Kimifusa Abe , was a Japanese writer, playwright, musician, photographer and inventor. Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his modernist sensibilities and his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society. Wikipedia  

✵ 7. March 1924 – 22. January 1993  •  Other names کوبو آبه
Kóbó Abe photo

Works

The Woman in the Dunes
The Box Man
Kóbó Abe
Kóbó Abe: 16 quotes9 likes

Famous Kóbó Abe Quotes

“You don't need me. What you really need is a mirror. Because any stranger is for you simply a mirror in which to reflect yourself. I don't ever again want to return to such a desert of mirrors.”

Kóbó Abe book The Face of Another

Source: The Face of Another

“Everyone has his own philosophy that doesn't hold good for anybody else.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Source: The Woman in the Dunes

“Loneliness was an unsatisfied thirst for illusion.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Source: The Woman in the Dunes

“When I look at small things, I think I shall go on living: drops of rain, leather gloves shrunk by being wet… When I look at something too big, I want to die: the Diet Building, or a map of the world…”

Kóbó Abe book The Box Man

Source: The Box Man

“Being free always involves being lonely.”

Kóbó Abe

Kóbó Abe Quotes

“Only a shipwrecked person who has just escaped drowning could understand the psychology of someone who breaks out in laughter just because he is able to breathe.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Part 3, Ch. 31
The Woman in the Dunes (1962)

“More than iron doors, more than walls, it is the tiny peephole that really makes the prisoner feel locked in.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Part 2, Ch. 21
The Woman in the Dunes (1962)

“Do you shovel to survive, or survive to shovel?”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Source: The Woman in the Dunes

“It goes on, terrifyingly repetitive. One could not do without repetition in life, like the beating of the heart, but it was also true that the beating of the heart was not all there was to life.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Part 2, Ch. 24
Source: The Woman in the Dunes (1962)

“Suddenly a sorrow the color of dawn welled up in him. They might as well lick each other's wounds. But they would lick forever, and the wounds would never heal, and in the end their tongues would be worn away.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Part 2, Ch. 27
The Woman in the Dunes (1962)

“Only the happy ones return to contentment. Those who were sad return to despair.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Source: The Woman in the Dunes

“He wanted to believe that his own lack of movement had stopped all movement in the world, the way a hibernating frog abolishes winter.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Part 1, Ch. 8
Source: The Woman in the Dunes (1962)

“Rarely will you meet anyone so jealous as a teacher. Year after year students tumble along like the waters of a river. They flow away, and only the teacher is left behind, like some deeply buried rock at the bottom of the current. Although he may tell others of his hopes, he doesn't dream of them himself. He thinks of himself as worthless and either falls into masochistic loneliness or, failing that, ultimately becomes suspicious and pious, forever denouncing the eccentricities of others. He longs so much for freedom and action that he can only hate people.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Part 2, Ch. 11
The Woman in the Dunes (1962)

“When a castaway collapses from hunger and thirst it is fear of physical want rather than a real want, they say. Defeat begins with the fear that one has lost.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Part 2, Ch. 18
The Woman in the Dunes (1962)

“The barrenness of sand, as it is usually pictured, was not caused by simple dryness, but apparently was due to the ceaseless movement that made it inhospitable to all living things. What a difference compared with the dreary way human beings clung together year in year out.”

Kóbó Abe book The Woman in the Dunes

Part 1, Ch. 2
The Woman in the Dunes (1962)

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