“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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“Trouble was, they never let on to their sons how scared they was—so scared they forgot the color of a man because he could outshoot the man who scared ’em. And bein ashamed, they never talked about it or discussed it in the family.”
― Peter Matthiessen, quote from Shadow Country
“Non lavorava come chi lavora per vivere, ma come qualcuno che non abbia altro scopo che lavorare, giudicandosi zero come uomo vivente e desiderando essere considerato solo in quanto artefice, che per il resto se ne va in giro modesto e insignificante, come un attore senza trucco, che non è nulla finchè non ha nulla da interpretare. Lavorava silenzioso, appartato, invisibile e pieno di disprezzo per quei mediocri che consideravano il genio un ornamento mondano e, poveri o ricchi che fossero, andavano in giro arruffati e cenciosi, o ricercavano il lusso con eccentriche cravatte, e insomma erano convinti di menare una vita insuperabilmente felice, affascinante e artistica; senza sapere che le opere di valore nascono solo sotto il premere di una vita cattiva, che colui che vive non lavora e che, per essere perfetti creatori, bisogna essere morti.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger
“When the governor ordered him to travel around the district courts to administer justice and he arrived at Gades, he noticed the statue of Alexander the Great at the temple of Hercules and groaned as though disgusted with his own idleness—he had done nothing worth remembering at an age when Alexander had already conquered the world. He”
― Suetonius, quote from The Twelve Caesars
“ts very simple. In everyday life, we're given a choice. Do the right thing, do nothing, or do the wrong thing. All too often, people choose to do nothing. And that's all right and what's wrong. Sometimes it's difficult to know what's right and what's wrong. But every so often, a few people choose to go out of their way to do the right thing.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from Awaken
“Earlier in the morning Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines had attacked eastward into the ruins of Shuri Castle and had raised the Confederate flag. When we learned that the flag of the Confederacy had been hoisted over the very heart and soul of Japanese resistance, all of us Southerners cheered loudly. The Yankees among us grumbled, and the Westerners didn’t know what to do. Later we learned that the Stars and Stripes that had flown over Guadalcanal were raised over Shuri Castle, a fitting tribute to the men of the 1st Marine Division who had the honor of being first into the Japanese citadel.”
― Eugene B. Sledge, quote from With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
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