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

worries seemed to form like so many bubbles, but unlike bubbles they floated about forever in my head, refusing to pop

“It’s the most beautiful disappearance ever.”

A rose garden without roses was a meaningless, desolate place, and it was terribly sad to see the trellises and other signs of all the care that had been lavished on the flowers

They carefully dismantled the flowers, petal by petal, and slipped them quietly into the stream.

While they had covered the narrow river in impressive fashion, they vanished almost instantly in the vastness of the ocean, sucked under by the waves.