Quotes from The Woman in the Dunes

“Loneliness was an unsatisfied thirst for illusion.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“Everyone has his own philosophy that doesn't hold good for anybody else.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“Only the happy ones return to contentment. Those who were sad return to despair.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“If there were no risk of a punishment, a getaway would lose the pleasure.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“The fish you don't catch is always the biggest.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“Будем каждое утро тщательно разглаживать любовь утюгом…”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“Más que de la mujer, el hombre tiende a enamorarse de los fragmentos y detalles de las cosas.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“-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 The Woman in the Dunes

“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 The Woman in the Dunes

“Defeat begins with the fear that one had lost.”
― Kōbō Abe, quote from The Woman in the Dunes

About the author

Popular quotes

“I looked to the sitting room then and gaped at Alec's body lying across my sofa making it look smaller than it was. He was reading something.
A book.
"What are you readin'?" I curiously asked.
"That porn book we were talking about earlier at my house. This dude is my God! He just fucked this Ana chick while she was on her period."
"Stop it!" I screeched. "Stop readin' and put the bloody book down!"
He was reading Fifty Shades of Grey.
I was both horrified and mortified.
Alec got up from the sofa, placed the book on the coffee table and turned in my direction.
"Why are you blushing?"
Him noticing my embarrassment only caused my already red cheeks to heat up even more.
"Oh damn, your cheeks are so flushed," Alec said and took a step towards me.”
― L.A. Casey, quote from Alec

“All the love in the world doesn't put food on the table.”
― Diane Chamberlain, quote from Necessary Lies

“I emphasize the distinction between brackets and no brackets because it will affect your reading experience, if you will allow it. Brackets are exciting. Even though you are approaching Sappho in translation, that is no reason you should miss the drama of trying to read a papyrus torn in half or riddled with holes or smaller than a postage stamp--brackets imply a free space of imaginal adventure.”
― Sappho, quote from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

“I stare into her eyes. The ones I know narrow and glare
when she’s pissed at me, the ones that close halfway before rolling up when she’s about to come, the ones that widen in surprise or brim with tears when she’s touched, and I realize I can’t wait to wake up every morning of the rest of my life and learn how else they can look at me.”
― K. Bromberg, quote from Raced

“My family had been in a refugee camp for a year and I was thirty-one years old when the government of Israel arranged through secret channels to fly all the Jews of Yemen to Israel. It was unofficially called Operation Magic Carpet, and officially called Operation On Wings of Eagles. When our people refused to enter the airplanes out of fear—for especially our brethren from the North had no experience with modernity—our rabbis reminded them of divine passages. “This is the fulfillment of ancient prophecy,” they said. “The eagles that fly us to the Promised Land may be made of metal, but their wings are buoyed aloft by the breath of God.” Between June 1949 and September 1950 almost fifty thousand Yemenite Jews boarded transport planes and made some 380 flights from Aden to Israel in this secret operation.”
― Nomi Eve, quote from Henna House

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.