Yoko Ogawa Quotes & Sayings

I wondered why ordinary words seemed so exotic when they were used in relation to numbers. Amicable numbers or twin primes had a precise quality about them, and yet they sounded as though they'd been taken straight out of a poem. — Yoko Ogawa

The truly correct proof is one that strikes a harmonious balance between strength and flexibility. There are plenty of proofs that are technically correct but are messy and inelegant or counterintuitive. But it's not something you can put into words - explaining why a formula is beautiful is like trying to explain why the stars are beautiful. — Yoko Ogawa

Solving a problem for which you know there's an answer is like climbing a mountain with a guide, along a trail someone else has laid. In mathematics, the truth is somewhere out there in a place no one knows, beyond all the beaten paths. And it's not always at the top of the mountain. It might be in a crack on the smoothest cliff or somewhere deep in the valley. — Yoko Ogawa

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. — Yoko Ogawa

He had a special feeling for what he called the "correct miscalculation," for he believed that mistakes were often as revealing as the right answers. This gave us confidence even when our best efforts came to nothing. — Yoko Ogawa

So, a great Indian teacher of mathematics discovered the zero written in God's notebook, and, thanks to him, we can now read many more pages in the notebook. Is that it? — Yoko Ogawa

If he had attacked me outright, I might have been able to defend myself. Instead, he exposed my secret as if offering himself to me. I was left mute, listening to my heart pounding in my chest. — Yoko Ogawa

The mathematics stacks were as silent and empty as ever - apparently no one suspected the riches hidden there. — Yoko Ogawa

He treated Root exactly as he treated prime numbers. For him, primes were the base on which all other natural numbers relied; and children were the foundation of everything worthwhile in the adult world — Yoko Ogawa

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. — Yoko Ogawa

I was always watching you. This could have been a breathless declaration of love or a final farewell. — Yoko Ogawa

It seemed as though the secret of the universe had miraculously appeared right here at our feet, as though God's notebook had opened under our bench. — Yoko Ogawa

The room was filled with a kind of stillness. Not simply an absence of noise, but an accumulation of layers of silence ... — Yoko Ogawa

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. — Yoko Ogawa

It's like copying truths from God's notebook, though we aren't always sure where to find this notebook or when it will be open. — Yoko Ogawa

The ancient Greeks thought there was no need to count something that was nothing. And since it was nothing, they held that it was impossible to express it as a figure. So someone had to overcome this reasonable assumption, someone had to figure out how to express nothing as a number. This unknown man from India made nonexistence exist. — Yoko Ogawa

Eternal truths are ultimately invisible, and you won't find them in material things or natural phenomena, or even in human emotions. — Yoko Ogawa

They say it'll be even hotter tomorrow. that's how we spend the summer. complaining about the heat. — Yoko Ogawa

-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. — Yoko Ogawa

Soon after I began working for the Professor, I realized that he talked about numbers whenever he was unsure of what to say or do. Numbers were also his way of reaching out to the world. They were safe, a source of comfort. — Yoko Ogawa

Math has proven the existence of God, because it is absolute and without contradiction; but the devil must exist as well, because we cannot prove it — Yoko Ogawa

It was clear that he didn't remember me from one day to the next. The note clipped to his sleeve simply informed him that it was not our first meeting, but it could not bring back the memory of the time we had spent together. — Yoko Ogawa

I was impressed by the delicate weaving of the numbers. No matter how carefully you unraveled a thread, a single moment of inattention could leave you stranded, with no clue what to do next. In all his years of study, the Professor had managed to glimpse several pieces of the lace. I could only hope that some part of him remembered the exquisite pattern. — Yoko Ogawa

The desires of the human heart know no reason or rules. — Yoko Ogawa

The pages and pages of complex, impenetrable calculations might have contained the secrets of the universe, copied out of God's notebook.
In my imagination, I saw the creator of the universe sitting in some distant corner of the sky, weaving a pattern of delicate lace so fine that that even the faintest light would shine through it. The lace stretches out infinitely in every direction, billowing gently in the cosmic breeze. You want desperately to touch it, hold it up to the light, rub it against your cheek. And all we ask is to be able to re-create the pattern, weave it again with numbers, somehow, in our own language; to make the tiniest fragment our own, to bring it back to eart. — Yoko Ogawa

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. — Yoko Ogawa

Are you just going to stand there frying hamburgers while your child could be dying in a fire? — Yoko Ogawa

It was as if a tiny crack had opened somewhere in him and was growing, tearing him to pieces. If he had simply been angry, I might have found a way to calm him, but I had no idea how to put him back together once he came apart. — Yoko Ogawa

His ironing seemed highly rational, with a constant speed that allowed him to get the best results, with the least effort; all the economy and elegance of his mathematical proofs performed right there on the ironing board. The Professor was definitely the best man for this job, we had to admit, since the tablecloth was made of delicate lace. — Yoko Ogawa

Among the many things that made the Professor an excellent teacher was the fact that he wasn't afraid to say 'we don't know.' For the Professor, there was no shame in admitting you didn't have the answer, it was a necessary step toward the truth. It was as important to teach us about the unknown or the unknowable as it was to teach us what had already been safely proven. — Yoko Ogawa

The Professor never really seemed to care whether we figured out the right answer to a problem. He preferred our wild, desperate guesses to silence, and he was even more delighted when those guesses led to new problems that took us beyond the original one. He had a special feeling for what he called the "correct miscalculation," for he believed that mistakes were often as revealing as the right answers. — Yoko Ogawa

Why was everyone dying? They had all been so alive just yesterday. — Yoko Ogawa

He preferred smart questions to smart answers. — Yoko Ogawa

Are all things quantifiable, and all numbers fraught with poetic possibility? — Yoko Ogawa

I needed this eternal truth [...] I needed the sense that this invisible world was somehow propping up the visible one, that this one, true line extended infinitely, without width or area, confidently piercing through the shadows. Somehow, this line would help me find peace. — Yoko Ogawa

The blades touched my abdomen. A cold shock ran through me, and my head began to spin. If he had pressed just a bit harder, the scissors might have pierced my soft belly. The skin would have peeled back, the fat beneath laid bare. Blood would have dripped on the bedspread. — Yoko Ogawa

Your body falling through space touches the deepest part of me. — Yoko Ogawa

All these things we had long since forgotten she gathered up one by one in her hands, caressing and warming them until they came back to life. It was as if she had come in place of the goddess of the rainbow to offer her grace and affection. She was perhaps the only one who ever truly loved the Hotel Iris. — Yoko Ogawa

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. — Yoko Ogawa

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. — Yoko Ogawa

Someone once wrote that worrying is the hardest thing about being a parent. — Yoko Ogawa

A problem isn't finished just because you've found the right answer. — Yoko Ogawa

I'm sure it must have been even more wonderful then, when we were young and knew nothing about the pain of growing up. — Yoko Ogawa

Root always showed amazing insight when it came to the Professor. — Yoko Ogawa

Whether at his desk or at the dinner table, when he talked about numbers, primes were most likely to make an appearance. At first, it was hard to see their appeal. They seemed so stubborn, resisting division by any number but one and themselves. Still, as we were swept up in the Professor's enthusiasm, we gradually came to understand his devotion, and the primes began to seem more real, as though we could reach out and touch them. — Yoko Ogawa

Because he had been- and in many ways still was- such a brilliant man, he no doubt understood the nature of his memory problem. It wasn't pride that prevented him from asking for help but a deep aversion to causing more trouble than necessary for those of us who lived in the normal world. — Yoko Ogawa

The waves of regret were gentle, but I knew they would ripple on forever. — Yoko Ogawa

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. — Yoko Ogawa

He discounted the value of his own efforts, and seemed to feel that anyone would have done the same. — Yoko Ogawa

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. — Yoko Ogawa