Yoko Ogawa

Though I’ve tried, I’ve found no way to fill in the voids left by the Memory Police.

he believed that mistakes were often as revealing as the right answers. This gave us confidence even when our best efforts came to nothing.

I couldn’t hear him clearly, but I decided not to ask him to repeat himself, in case it had been something less romantic

Jealousy seems to make me suffer in the most unexpected ways

I must have had a good reason for wanting to kill myself, but I’ve forgotten what it was

like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Did you know that an insect will fall silent if you cut off its antennae? It will just sit there, as if frozen, and even refuse to eat. The same as you, really. When you lost your voice, you lost the ability to make sense of yourself

You’ll live among the fading voices trapped in these typewriters

Tension and fear lingered in their bodies, leaving no room for other sensations.

It felt terrible that your fate depended on something as insignificant as the corner of a rug