Quotes by : Kōbō Abe

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

If animal history has been a history of evolution, then the history of mankind is one of retrogression.....

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

Just as trees bear their fruit before winter, just as bamboo grass produces its seeds just before it....

When will you ever accept the true ugliness of health?

Defeat begins with the fear that one had lost.

These days only a guerrilla or a box man would want to cover up his identity to the extent of refusing....

The future is forever a projection of the present.

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

Loneliness—since I was trying to escape it—was hell; and yet for the hermit who seeks it, it is apparently....