Japanese writer (1924-1993)
You don't need me. What you really need is a mirror. Because any stranger is for you simply a mirror in which to reflect yourself. I don't ever again want to return to such a desert of mirrors.
KOBO ABE
The Face of Another
Loneliness is terrible, of course, but being betrayed by the mask of one's fellow man is much worse.
KOBO ABE
The Face of Another
I must doubtless admit that the paleontologist's view that heavily made-up women are prone to hysteria is an extremely astute theory.
KOBO ABE
The Face of Another
No matter how much television dramas go on singing the cloying praises of the family, it is the outside world, full of enemies and lechers, that passes on a man's worth, pays his wages, and guarantees him the right to live.
KOBO ABE
The Face of Another
A crowd isn't formed after people gather; people gather after the crowd forms.
KOBO ABE
The Face of Another
I might simply be imagining things, but I do believe that in this parodying of heresy there exists a daring kind of wisdom that might also parody the grounds of orthodoxy.
KOBO ABE
The Frontier Within