Kōbō Abe Quotes

I try to exercise in nature, and I try to play golf once a month. The last time I played golf with my wife, however, she got better scores than me, which became an additional source of stress.

My basic notion regarding the matter of historical recognition is basically, it's a matter that should be left to the good hands of historians and experts.

We aim to achieve general progress in relations between North Korea and Japan.

You can teach taste, editorial sense, but the ability to say something funny is something I've never been able to teach anyone.

I don't understand these new coaches who don't drink. What do they do when they get beat?

When Death puts out our Flame, the Snuff will tell, If we were Wax, or Tallow by the smell.

Something whose connection with human experience we cannot grasp is bound to be frightening.

I advise students on the subject of color as follows: If it looks good enough to eat, use it.

Somewhere in my head, a private conviction exists that 'Search is the Process' and 'Discovery the Art Form.

The search which takes place in my studio might best be described as a mining operation, a vertical dig in which a number of discoveries are apt to surface from a single shaft.

Someone once defined humor as a way to keep from killing yourself. I keep my sense of humor and I stay alive.

You throw a perfectly straight line at the audience and then, right at the end, you curve it. Good jokes do that.

Needless, heedless, wanton and deliberate injury of the sort inflicted by Life's picture story is not an essential instrument of responsible journalism.

Damn referees, I'll miss them less than anybody.

The thorn of death falls from heaven, and its myriad forms leave us no room to move.

You always catch the wrong players.

Emptiness is not a mere emptiness, but rather fullness in which the distinctiveness of everything is throughly realized.

I didn't ask you to catch me!" "You're so delightful when you're irrational. Of course I'm going to catch you." He slid a hand behind her nape and kissed her again. "It's what I do.

Collage-making, for me, is basically an act of painting, allowing me to indulge in an appetite for immediacy.

It is essential for me to become involved in another search, and 'search' is the proper word to use because it promises discovery along with the risk.

Glamour: the indefinable something about a girl with a big bosom.

For a justice of this ultimate tribunal [the U.S. Supreme Court], the opportunity for self-discovery and the occasion for self-revelation is great.

I don't have any tricky plays. I'd rather have tricky players.

Some people, when they're called before the police, like nothing better than to spill everything, fact and fiction alike, hoping to create a good impression.

In Buddhism, compassion always goes with wisdom. Compassion without wisdom is not understood to be true compassion, and wisdom without compassion is not true wisdom.

I want to love, and be loved.

All that effort,” he mused, “merely to avoid me. How gratifying.

Defeat begins with the fear that one had lost.

It is better to give your path to a dog than to be bitten by him, contesting for the right.

We pretended to be of mud instead of stars. We pretended not to fly.

Better to say nothing at all, rather than something you'll regret.

Then how about this: Remember Austin Gollaher, because what we do matters, even if we don't end up in history books.

You can only do what you can no matter how you try.

Clinging to one’s outward appearance interferes with living.

I want to spy on all sorts of places, and the box is a portable hole that occurred to me under the circumstances, it being impossible to punch holes throughout the world.

One measure of a civilization, in fact, is the percentage of misfits in its society.

The future is forever a projection of the present.

What isn't remembered never happened.Memory is merely a record...you just need to rewrite that record.

The world itself, like the mask, began to seem difficult to believe in, and I was stricken with an unutterable sense of loneliness.

It’s a real handicap to have a face with shifty eyes.

She did what she could for him. She kissed him in return. She lost her breath and both her hearts, and finally Turned to smoke and back.

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.

When will you ever accept the true ugliness of health?

will you be the one reading the book or writing the book

Zen is a double-edged sword, killing words and thoughts, yet at the same time, giving them life. Although beyond human intellect and philosophy, Zen is their root and source.

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

They say the level of civilization is proportionate to the degree of cleanliness of the skin. Assuming that man has a soul, it must, in all likelihood, be housed in the skin.

You know what they call the guy who finishes last in medical school? They call him Doctor!

My opinion is that politicians should be humble in the face of history. And whenever history is a matter of debate, it should be left in the hands of historians and experts.