Quotes from K?b? Abe

It's an established theory in infant psychology that the human animal can validate his ego only through the eyes of others. Have you ever seen the expressions of imbeciles or schizophrenics? If the roadway is left blocked too long, one ultimately quite forgets there is one.

The pleasure of deceiving would fade to a shadow before the anxiety of being deceived.

The whole exchange between us seemed to be proceeding on two quite divergent rails.

I wonder whether the nation itself is not an enormous mask intolerant of the rivalry of individual masks.

If one accepted such reasoning, I who had lost my face was destined to be shut up forever in a solitary cell … with no roadway … and so a mask became invested with a terribly profound meaning.

Bien, escúchame con calma. Los que sufren vértigo, los drogadictos, los histéricos, los asesinos maniáticos, los sifilíticos, los deficientes mentales…, suponiendo que haya el uno por ciento de cada uno de ellos, sobre el total representarían un veinte por ciento… De ser posible enumerar otras ochenta anormalidades, y por supuesto se puede, se constituiría una prueba estadística de que la humanidad es cien por cien anormal.

le visage est le pont jeté entre le moi et celui des autres

Choosing a standard, in other words, is to commit oneself to others.

When one is advised that something is black and white at the same time, it would be better to have no advice at all.

Wonder, fear, discovery, suspicion, hesitation, fascination, curiosity—all were crammed into his little eyes...

The whole surface of her body was covered with a coat of fine sand, which hid the details and brought out the feminine lines; she seemed a statue gilded with sand.

In such a cruel, self-centered crowd would there ever be some soft-hearted fellow who would sell me his face?

If I were just in trousers, somehow I could go out into the world. It would make no difference whether I was naked from the waist up and my feet bare just as long as I had trousers on. Otherwise if you go walking around the streets without trousers, no matter how new your shoes and how elegant your coat, it's enough to raise a big hue and cry. Enlightened society is a kind of trouser society.

If I'm to be forever stared at like that, I really will end up a monster! At length, unable to stand it, I brushed aside the forest of humanity and, as if taking shelter in some cave, rushed headlong into a nearby movie house, a "market place of darkness"—the only safe place for a monster.

The artificial darkness with its lingering warmth crept about me like a muffler. I gradually began to recover my composure, like a mole that has gone to ground.

the one who best understands the significance of light is not the electrician, not the painter, not the photographer, but the man who has lost his sight in adulthood.

although the people walking along the streets were strangers to each other, they formed a tight chain, like some organic composition, and I could not squeeze in. Could sharing ordinary, normal faces forge such a strong bond among them? Moreover, even the things they wore matched. The mass-produced patterns of today called fashion. Is that a negation of the uniform, for heaven's sake, or simply a new kind of uniform?

A letter with no address is simply returned, no matter how many stamps one puts on it.

After we're done, I want you to forget the whole thing … that we ever even met." "That's all right by me. Anyway, it doesn't look like something I'll want to remember.

Wouldn't it be common sense to ask at once what I meant, without brooding over it?

The man's expression grew darker and darker, and he puffed restlessly on his cigarette; he had apparently quite forgotten the original business. I had at first intended to tell him, and only him, something of the real facts in order to allay his opposition as much as possible, but there was apparently no longer any need to. Under my bandage I involuntarily smiled a secret, bitter smile. Once in a while it's good to give vent to one's anger.

Perhaps it would be better to say that, rather than losing their passion, they had frozen it by over-idealizing it.

I deliberately let him stew in uncertainty, adding now and then an ill-tempered thrust. I didn't bear him any personal grudge. I was doubtless only trying to take my revenge against the convention of faces.

If the convention of the face were empty, perhaps a disguise too was just as empty.