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

the only thing I could see were sheets of rain, obscuring everything—the trees in the yard, the fence, the telephone poles, the sky. Thick, suffocating sheets of rain.

we had things we wanted to say, but it seemed as though something weighed on our chests, preventing the words from coming out the moment we opened our mouths

Memories don’t just pile up—they also change over time. And sometimes they fade of their own accord

“My memories don’t feel as though they’ve been pulled up by the root. Even if they fade, something remains. Like tiny seeds that might germinate again if the rain falls

one that offers some resistance, that is tantalizingly transparent and yet not, that seems to change as the light shines on it at different angles.”