Kōbō Abe Quotes

There are apparently two hypotheses about jealousy: that it is a product of civilization and that it is a basic instinct of animals.

When he saw the vista of the street reflected in the mirror in which he was looking, he was terror stricken. He had the impression that the whole view had turned into eyes that reproached him.

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. 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.

If animal history has been a history of evolution, then the history of mankind is one of retrogression. Hooray for monsters! Monsters are the great embodiments of the weak.

If I were just in trousers, somehow I could go out into the world. It would make no difference whether I was naked from the waist up and my feet bare just as long as I had trousers on. Otherwise if you go walking around the streets without trousers, no matter how new your shoes and how elegant your coat, it’s enough to raise a big hue and cry. Enlightened society is a kind of trouser society.