“For a torture to be effective, the pain has to be spread out; it has to come at regular intervals, with no end in sight. The water falls , drop after drop after drop, like the second hand of a watch, carving up time. The shock of each individual drop is insignificant, but the sensation is impossible to ignore. At first, one might manage to think about other things, but after five hours, after ten hours, it becomes unendurable. The repeated stimulation excites the nerves to a point where they literally explode, and every sensation in the body is absorbed into that one spot on the forehead---indeed, you come to feel that you are nothing but a forehead, into which a fine needle is being forced millimeter by millimeter. You can’t sleep or even speak, hypnotized by a suffering that is greater than any mere pain. In general, the victim goes mad before a day has passed.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“When I’m curled up in his arms like this, I can never tell how my body looks to him. I worry that I seem completely ridiculous, but I have the ability to squeeze into any little space he leaves for me. I fold my legs until they take up almost no room at all, and curl in my shoulders until they’re practically dislocated. Like a mummy in a tomb. And when I get like this, I don’t care if I never get out; or maybe that’s exactly what I hope will happen.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“She began to sing, but I could not make out the words. It must have been a love song, to judge from the slightly pained expression on her face, and the way she tightly gripped the microphone. I noticed a flash of white skin on her neck. As she reached the climax of the song, her eyes half closed and her shoulders thrown back, a shudder passed through her body. She moved her arm across her chest to cradle her heart, as though consoling it, afraid it might burst. I wondered what would happen if I held her tight in my arms, in a lovers’ embrace, melting into one another, bone on bone… her heart would be crushed. The membrane would split, the veins tear free, the heart itself explode into bits of flesh, and then my desire would contain hers - it was all so painful and yet so utterly beautiful to imagine.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“Are you eating?" I asked. "You have to keep up your strength."
"All of a sudden you're grown and worrying about me, instead of the other way around. Seems like yesterday you were just a little boy.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“I worried that if she were forced to say more, she might shrink farther away and disappear altogether.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“It shocked me to realize that he suddenly seemed old -- so frail that the slightest push would have sent him tumbling. The body I had felt when I'd gone searching for my hidden presents had been sturdier; and though I had always thought of him as tall, e was now much shorter than me.
I realized I had no idea how old he was -- I suppose I'd thought that something as mundane as age could never apply to him.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“The desires of the human heart know no reason or rules.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“The door that would not open no matter how hard you pushed, no matter how long you pounded on it. The screams no one heard. Darkness, hunger, pain. Slow suffocation. One day it occurred to me that I needed to experience the same suffering he had.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“I was afraid that if she went on much longer, her fingers would scrape away my skin, rip my flesh, crush my bones. The pillow was damp with saliva, and I wanted to scream.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“Bet she looks as good inside as out – warm, red, inviting, all those little wrinkles tempting you deeper and deeper…”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
“-Excuse me,- I said, but my voice seemed to disappear into the dark.
It was my body. In this gloomy, cramped box, I had eaten poison plants and died, hidden away from prying eyes.
Crouching down at the door, I wept. For my dead self.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from Revenge
Yōko Ogawa
Born place: in Okayama, Japan
Born date March 30, 1962
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“I also got the impression that having a lot of money can turn a decent person into an asshole.”
― Susane Colasanti, quote from Take Me There
“What mattered was removing himself from his present existence in an effort to find his future.”
― Terry Brooks, quote from Running with the Demon
“Cole, for Christ's sake, will you stop staring at me like I'm beefcake of the month?”
― Simon Holt, quote from Soulstice
“There is but one truly philosophical problem, and that is suicide,” the text began. I winced. “Whether or not the world has three dimensions or the mind nine or twelve categories,” it continued, “comes afterward”; such questions, the text explained, were part of the game humanity played, but they deserved attention only after the one true issue had been settled. The book was The Myth of Sisyphus and was written by the Algerian-born philosopher and Nobel laureate Albert Camus. After a moment, the iciness of his words melted under the light of comprehension. Yes, of course, I thought. You can ponder this or analyze that till the cows come home, but the real question is whether all your ponderings and analyses will convince you that life is worth living. That’s what it all comes down to. Everything else is detail.”
― Brian Greene, quote from The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
“Those screams had been growing steadily louder, as the torture masters of Eld worked their way down the line of new prisoners. A few chimes ago, however, the screams had fallen mysteriously silent.
"Do you think the torture masters have tired themselves out?" Gaelen pondered with black humor.
"More likely, we're next, and they've just gone to sharpen their blades," Tajik said.
Locked up in the room with them, Farel gave a grunting laugh of amusement. "Could be. They've been using them enough."
"You know," Gil announced, "as rescues go, I have to say this one pretty much scorches rultshart turds.”
― C.L. Wilson, quote from Crown of Crystal Flame
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