Yoko Ogawa

I would have been about seven or eight years old, dressed in a pink lace skirt my mother had made for me. It was by then much too short, even when I pulled on the lace, and I remember being terribly worried that my cousin, coming up behind me on the stairs, would be able to see my underwear.

We called him the Professor.

Still, you refuse to give up

staggering on step by step, determined to continue the search ... until you see it at last, the oasis of another prime number, a place of rest and cool, clear water...."

Life isn't going to be easier, nor is anyone going to make a fortune, just because they know something about prime numbers

‘Men who start by burning books end by burning other men,’

My mother was at her most lively when she talked about this small bottle

But as things got thinner, more full of holes, our hearts got thinner, too

Time is a great healer. It just flows on all of its own accord.

“No, don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt, and you won’t even be particularly sad. One morning you’ll simply wake up and it will be over, before you’ve even realized. Lying still, eyes closed, ears pricked, trying to sense the flow of the morning air, you’ll feel that something has changed from the night before, and you’ll know that you’ve lost something, that something has been disappeared from the island.”