KOBO ABE QUOTES

Japanese writer (1924-1993)

Time cannot be spurred on like a horse.

KOBO ABE

The Woman in the Dunes

Tags: time


The most frightening thing in the world is to discover the abnormal in that which is closest to us.

KOBO ABE

Tags: differences


Nothing is so awkward as a demonstration of humanity by the enemy.

KOBO ABE

Secret Rendezvous

Tags: enemies


When I was young, I could bounce back from things like a brand-new rubber ball.

KOBO ABE

The Ghost is Here

Tags: youth


There wasn't a single item of importance [in the newspaper]. A tower of illusion, all of it, made of illusory bricks and full of holes.

KOBO ABE

The Woman in the Dunes

Tags: news


Do you shovel to survive, or survive to shovel?

KOBO ABE

The Woman in the Dunes

Tags: survival


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.

KOBO ABE

The Woman in the Dunes

Tags: teaching


Whatever you say or do, nobody's going to recognize the Kingdom of Quintessential Castoffs as a sovereign nation.

KOBO ABE

The Ark Sakura


Man's being is the night and the night is man's being.

KOBO ABE

The Frontier Within

Tags: night


A tower of illusion, all of it, made of illusory bricks and full of holes. If life were made up only of imporant things, it really would be a dangerous house of glass, scarcely to be handled carelessly. But everyday life was exactly like the headlines. And so everybody, knowing the meaninglessness of existence, sets the centre of his compass at his own home.

KOBO ABE

The Woman in the Dunes

Tags: illusion, life


Compared to the you in my heart, the I in you is insignificant.

KOBO ABE

The Box Man


Yet there seemed to be some truth in the law of probability, according to which the chance of success is directly proportionate to the number of repetitions.

KOBO ABE

The Woman in the Dunes

Tags: success


Things have value because somebody buys them, because somebody pays money; if you can find a buyer, even a lie is worth a thousand yen.

KOBO ABE

The Ghost is Here

Tags: value


Love strips the mask from each of us, and we must endeavor for those we love to put the mask on so that it can be taken off again. For if there is no mask to start with, there is no pleasure in removing it.

KOBO ABE

The Face of Another

Tags: love


Work seemed something fundamental for man, something which enabled him to endure the aimless flight of time.

KOBO ABE

The Woman in the Dunes

Tags: work, time


Still, the one who best understands the significance of light is not the electrician, not the painter, not the photographer, but the man who lost his sight in adulthood. There must be the wisdom of deficiency in deficiency, just as there is the wisdom of plenty in plenty.

KOBO ABE

The Face of Another

Tags: sight


What contemporary society needs is essentially abstract human relationships, so that even faceless people like me can earn their wages with no interference.

KOBO ABE

The Face of Another


It would seem that marsupials are poor imitations of full-fledged mammals. Their inadequacy gives them a certain appeal.

KOBO ABE

Kangaroo Notebook


Now that you are dead, you are splendid. Photographs of people who have just died are worth twenty percent more, and for suicides there is an additional five percent. Now that you are dead you are much in demand.

KOBO ABE

The Ghost is Here

Tags: death, photography


Green makes me think of silence, or maybe it's loneliness. I get the feeling of a terribly distant star.

KOBO ABE

The Green Stockings

Tags: color, loneliness