“Loneliness was an unsatisfied thirst for illusion.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“One could not do without repetition in life, like the beating of the heart, but it was also true that the beating of the heart was not all there was to life.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“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.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“Everyone has his own philosophy that doesn't hold good for anybody else.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“He wanted to believe that his own lack of movement had stopped all movement in the world, the way a hibernating frog abolishes winter.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“Only the happy ones return to contentment. Those who were sad return to despair.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“I rather think the world is like sand. The fundamental nature of sand is very difficult to grasp when you think of it in its stationary state. Sand not only flows, but this very flow is the sand.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“What in heaven's name was the real essence of this beauty? Was it the precision of nature with its physical laws, or was it nature's mercilessness, ceaselessly resisting man's understanding?”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“If there were no risk of a punishment, a getaway would lose the pleasure.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“If from the beginning you always believed that a ticket was only one-way, then you wouldn't have to try so vainly to cling to the sand like an oyster to a rock.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“The only way to go beyond work is through work. It is not that work itself is valuable; we surmount work by work. The real value of work lies in the strength of self-denial.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“Certainly sand was not suitable for life. Yet, was a stationary condition absolutely indispensable for existence? Didn't unpleasant competition arise precisely because one tried to cling to a fixed position? If one were to give up a fixed position and abandon oneself to the movement of the sands, competition would soon stop. Actually, in the deserts flowers bloomed and insects and other animals lived their lives. These creatures were able to escape competition through their great ability to adjust--for example, the man's beetle family.
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.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“The fish you don't catch is always the biggest.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“This crazy, blind beating of wings caused by man-made light... this irrational connection between spiders, moths and light. If a law appeared without reason, like this, what would one believe in?”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“His expression hardened. It was unpleasant to have feelings that he had been at pains to check aroused to no purpose”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“Когда на тебя смотрят, а ты делаешь что-то гадкое — это гадкое в той же степени марает и тех, кто смотрит.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“Будем каждое утро тщательно разглаживать любовь утюгом…”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“Нет иного пути возвыситься над трудом, как посредством самого труда. Не труд сам по себе имеет ценность, а преодоление труда трудом… Истинная ценность труда в силе его самоотрицания…”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“Sand, which didn't even have a form of it's own. Yet, not a single thing could stand against this shapeless, destructive power. The very fact that it had no form was doubtless the highest manifestation of its strenght, was it not?”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“The beauty of sand, in other words, belonged to death. it was the beauty of death that ran through the magnificence of its ruins and its great power of destruction”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“The barrenness of sand, as it is usually pictured, was not caused by simple dryness, but apparently was due to the ceaseless movement that made it inhospitable to all living things. What a difference compared with the dreary way human beings clung together year in year out.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“And so, one bit one's nails, unable to find contentment in the simple beating of one's heart... one smoked, unable to be satisfied with the rhythm of one's brain...”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“Más que de la mujer, el hombre tiende a enamorarse de los fragmentos y detalles de las cosas.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“انگار هر زن عادی جداً معتقد است که نمیتواند مرد را به ارزش خود واقف کند، مگر اینکه خودش را به او عرضه کند، چنان کند که انگار صحنهای از یک داستان عاشقانه است. اما این توهم رقتانگیز و معصومانه در حقیقت زن را قربانی یک طرفهی تجاوزی روحی میکرد.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“The same sand currents had swallowed up and destroyed flourishing cities and great empires. They called it the "sabulation" of the Roman Empire, if he remembered rightly.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“-Well, what happens with the River of Hades in the end?
-Not a thing. It's an infernal punishment precisely because nothing happens.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“There are all kinds of life, and sometimes the other side of the hill looks greener. What's hardest for me is not knowing what living like this will ever come to.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
“Defeat begins with the fear that one had lost.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from 砂の女 [Suna no onna]
Kōbō Abe
Born place: in Kita, Tokyo, Japan
Born date March 7, 1924
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“Rundstedt, revered throughout the German regular officer corps as its last archetypal Prussian, refused to deal with detail or to look at small-scale maps, as if the fighting itself were distasteful to him, but spent his days reading detective stories and thrice resigned his command.”
― John Keegan, quote from The Face Of Battle: A Study Of Agincourt, Waterloo And The Somme
“That’s up to you, Jack, but part of doing this kind of work is the willingness to put on blinders. Deal with what’s in front of you. Every terrorist has a mother and father. Maybe kids, maybe people that love him. Hell, six days out of seven he might be a decent citizen, but on that one day he decides to pick up a gun or plant a bomb, he’s a threat. And if you’re the guy standing between him and innocent lives, the threat is all you can afford to worry about. You get what I’m saying?”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Dead or Alive
“Le scandale du monde, est ce qui fait l'offense;
Et ce n'est pas pécher, que pécher en silence.”
― Molière, quote from Tartuffe
“What an advantage that knowledge can be stored in books! The knowledge lies there like hermetically sealed provisions waiting for the day when you may need a meal. Surely what the Collector was doing as he pored over his military manuals, was proving the superiority of the European way of doing things, of European culture itself. This was a culture so flexible that whatever he needed was there in a book at his elbow. An ordinary sort of man, he could, with the help of an oil-lamp, turn himself into a great military engineer, a bishop, an explorer or a General overnight, if the fancy took him. As the Collector pored over his manuals, from time to time rubbing his tired eyes, he knew that he was using science and progress to help him out of his difficulties and he was pleased. The inventions on his desk, the carriage which supplied its own track and the effervescent drinking vessel, watched him in silent admiration as he worked. The”
― J.G. Farrell, quote from The Siege of Krishnapur
“Eliza’s laughter died abruptly when Hamilton dropped down by her side and, for some unknown reason, began to play with the fabric of her skirt that was billowed out around her even as he continued bantering with his brother. She shot a look to Gloria and groaned. Of course the woman would have noticed her son’s actions. She scrambled to her feet, made a circle around the blanket, and dropped back down on the other side of Agatha, far from Hamilton’s reach. “Didn’t like where you were sitting?” Agatha muttered. “I thought I’d get closer to you so we could chat,” Eliza said.”
― Jen Turano, quote from A Change of Fortune
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The Lions of Al-Rass...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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