69 Quotes by Kōbō Abe

It was jealousy. Jealousy based on imagination...

Indeed, jealousy is an animal feeling, capable even of rising to murder. There are apparently two hypotheses about jealousy: that it is a product of civilization and that it is a basic instinct of animals.

I had dreamt up a cause for my jealousy by myself and I was jealous because of myself.

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

These days only a guerrilla or a box man would want to cover up his identity to the extent of refusing the convenience of instalment buying. But I am that box man. A representative of anti-instalmentism.

The future is forever a projection of the present.

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.

While he mused on the effect of the flowing sands, he was seized from time to time by hallucinations in which he himself began to move with the flow.

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.