Yōko Ogawa · 164 pages
Rating: (3.3K votes)
“Still, being alone doesn't mean you have to be miserable. In that sense it's different from losing something. You've still got yourself, even if you lose everything else. You've got to have faith in yourself and not get down just because you're on your own.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
“When we grow up, we find ways to hide our anxieties, our loneliness, our fear and sorrow. But children hide nothing, putting everything into their tears, which they spread liberally about for the whole world to see.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
“I was always watching you." This could have been a breathless declaration of love or a final farewell.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
“I'm sure it must have been even more wonderful then, when we were young and knew nothing about the pain of growing up.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
“I knew immediately that it was different from other photographs.
The night sky in the background was pure and black, so dark it made you dizzy if you stared at it too long. The rain drifted through the frame like a gentle mist, but right in the middle was a hollow area in the shape of a lima been.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
“I couldn't reach him from here even if I tried.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
“Disappeared' is the only way to describe it-it was as if he dissolved into thin air without so much as a whimper. I wouldn't have believed that a human being with a brain, a heart, with arms and legs and the power of speech could have simple vanished like that. There was nothing about him that suggested he would disappear.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
“Your body falling through space touches the deepest part of me.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
“Sometimes I wish I could describe how wonderful I feel in those few seconds from the time he spreads his arms above his head, as if trying to grab hold of something, to the instant he vanishes into the water. But I can never find the right words. Perhaps it’s because he’s falling through time, to a place where words can never reach.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
“Since that time, I've had many similar moments, and I can never hear the words "family" and "home" without feeling that they sound strange, never simply hear them and let them go. When I stop to examine them, though, the words seem hollow, seem to rattle at my feet like empty cans.”
― Yōko Ogawa, quote from The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
“Some experts suggest you announce that you have a gun and state your intent to use it. The theory assumes the home intruder would rather avoid armed conflict and flee the scene. I subscribe to the “surprise them with a bullet” technique.”
― Anson Scott, quote from Borderland
“The union of a dedicated Dom and a confident submissive is a harmonious marriage of souls. There is no other experience like it.”
― Red Phoenix, quote from Brie Learns the Art of Submission: Submissive Training Center
“Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will.”
― Cheryl Strayed, quote from Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
“You are the first of your kind. Books will be written about you. Be the legend you are meant to be. - Astral”
― Candace Knoebel, quote from Embracing the Flames
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Eph. 6:12 (NIV)”
― quote from Holy Bible: New International Version
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