Quotes About Connection

Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love.

The human need for language is not simply for the transmission of meaning, it is at the same time listening to and affirming a person's existence.

Mentre scrivo queste righe a Sydney, una splendida coppia di pappagalli verdi con il petto arancione è accovacciata sul tetto dell'edificio accanto e sta nutrendo il proprio cucciolo. Se gli uccelli possono provare un simile sentimento e non abbandonare mai le loro creature, com'è possibile che degli esseri umani rinuncino ripetutamente ai loro figli?

A vida toda eu tivera vontade de que ela (mãe) me abraçasse. Quando eu era criança, ela não me abraçou nem beijou uma única vez.

Maybe there's a place out there where people whose hearts aren't empty can go on living.

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.

Far from being amicable, the numbers seem to turn their backs on each other, and I couldn't find a pair with even the most tenuous connection, let alone this wonderfully intimate one. The Professor was right. My birthday and his watch had overcome great trials and tribulations to meet each other in the vast sea of numbers.

Maybe there's a place out there where people whose hearts aren't empty can go on living.

His joy had little to do with the difficulty of the problem. Simple or hard, the pleasure was in sharing it with us.

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

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

I suspect the only reason I've been able to go on writing is that I've had your heart by my side all along. — Y?ko Ogawa, The Memory Police , transl. Stephen Snyder (Pantheon, 2019)

A heart has no shape, no limits. That's why you can put almost any kind of thing in it, why it can hold so much.

You can't write with your head. I want you to write with your hand," he said. It was rare for him to make a pronouncement like this, so I found myself simply nodding in silence. Then I stretched my hand toward him, fingers extended. "That's right. That's where the story should come from," he said, but he looked away, as though he had seen into the most vulnerable part of my body.

I feel empty when Root isn't here," I said. I hadn't really been speaking to him, but the Professor murmured in reply, "So, you're saying that there's a zero in you?" "I suppose that's what I mean," I said, nodding weakly. "The person who discovered zero must have been remarkable, don't you think?" "Hasn't zero been around forever?" "How long is forever?

The sound of time flowing between us became the sound of the water trickling quietly from the faucet until dawn.

the sound of his voice could wash away the sour feeling in my stomach.

The supple line of his jaw and the fixed plane of his collarbone functioned together like a precisely calibrated instrument that seemed to become a separate living thing as we watched.

I wonder how she broke the news to her husband. I don't really know what they talk about when I'm not around. In fact, I don't really understand couples at all. They seem like some sort of inexplicable gaseous body to me—a shapeless, colorless, unintelligible thing, trapped in a laboratory beaker.

During all those years, even after Root was old enough to grow a mustache, in the Professor's eyes he remained a small boy in need of protection. And when the Professor could no longer reach high enough, Root would bend over so the Professor could rub his head.

You see, my brother-in-law can never remember you, but he can never forget me

And what will happen if words disappear?

he had discovered the natural connection between numbers that seemed completely unrelated.

And what will happen if words disappear? I whispered to myself, afraid that if I said it too loudly, it might come true.