Quotes from Julie Otsuka

Because the only way to resist, our husbands had taught us, was by not resisting.

It keeps us centered and focused, it slows down the aging process, it lowers our blood pressure, it improves our stamina, our memory, our lung capacity, our general outlook on life itself.

She said she didn't want rice. She didn't want anything anymore. Not a thing. But every once in a while she got a faraway look in her eyes and he knew she was thinking of some other place. A better place. Just once, she told him, I'd like to look out the window and see the sea.

They learned that some people are born luckier than others and that things in this world do not always go as you plan. STILL

One must not get too attached to the things of this world. AS

Later, your mother says, Didn't everything used to have a name?

The night of his arrest, he asked me to go get him a glass of water. We'd just gone to bed and I was so tired. I was exhausted. So I told him to go get it himself. 'Next time I will,' he said, and then he rolled over and went right to sleep. Later, as they were taking him away, all I could think was, 'Now he'll always be thirsty.' Even now, in my dreams, he's still searching for water.

Every few days the letters arrived, tattered and torn, from Lordsburg, New Mexico. Sometimes entire sentences had been cut out with a razor blade by the censors and the letters did not make any sense. Sometimes they arrived in one piece, but with half of the words blacked out. Always, they were signed, From Papa, With Love.

You will see: women are weak, but mothers are strong.

the last complete sentence she ever utters is "It's a good thing there's birds.

A memory from before: his sister arriving home from school with her new jump rope trailing behind her on the sidewalk. They let me turn the handle, she said, but they wouldn't let me jump. She had cut the rope up into tiny pieces and tossed them into the ivy and sworn she would never jump rope again.

And remember, it's easier to bend than to break.

MOSTLY, they were ashamed of us.

She does not remember saying to you, the other night, right after your father left the room, He loves me more than I love him. She does not remember saying to you, a moment later, I can hardly wait until he comes back.

Their old life seemed far away and remote to him now, like a dream he could not quite remember. The bright green grass, the roses, the house on the wide street not far from the sea -- that was another time, a different year.

The pool is their sanctuary, their refuge, the one place on earth they can go to escape from their pain, for it is only down below in the waters that their symptoms begin to abate. The moment I see that painted black line, I feel fine.

They learned that some people are born luckier than others and that things in this world do not always go as you plan.

And now here you are, sitting in your chair by the window, gazing out urgently, raptly at "your" tree—its shapely green canopy, its black velvety shadows, its sinuously curved trunk, its barky brown bark.

People to watch out for: aggressive lappers, determined thrashers, oblivious backstrokers, stealthy sub-mariners, middle aged men who insist on speeding up the moment they sense they are about to be overtaken by a woman, tailgaters, lane nazi's, arm flailers, ankle yankers, pickup artists - we're not that kind of a pool - the peeper, a highly regarded children's TV host in his life above ground, who is best known below ground for his swift lane change.

But we never say, the pool. Because the pool is ours and ours alone. It's my own secret Valhalla.

Surely there must be something they had said, or done, surely there must be some mistake they had made, surely they must be guilty of something, some obscure crime, perhaps, of which they were not even aware.

Was it their face, in fact, for which they were guilty? Did it fail to please in some way? Worse yet, did it offend? IN

Breaking a chain letter from Juneau, Alaska.

illegally double-parked near the entrance to the school playground, drones its slow maniacal song.