Banana Yoshimoto Quotes

Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.

As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won’t let my spirit be destroyed.

 

I love feeling the rhythm of other people’s lives. It’s like traveling.

Over and over, we begin again.

Truly happy memories always live on, shining. Over time, one by one, they come back to life.

The sky was incredibly far away, and beautiful enough to make a person wonder why our hearts are never so free.

If you don’t say what you’re thinking, you end up lying when you really need to speak up.

Once you’ve recognized your own limits, you’ve raised yourself to a higher level of being, since you’re closer to the real you.

When was it I realized that, on this truly dark and solitary path we all walk, the only way we can light is our own? Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely. Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.

When things get really bad, you take comfort in the placeness of a place.

It’s a marvelous thing, the ocean. For some reason when two people sit together looking out at it, they stop caring whether they talk or stay silent. You never get tired of watching it. And no matter how rough the waves get, you’re never bothered by the noise the water makes by the commotion of the surface – it never seems too loud, or too wild.

But I have my life, I’m living it. It’s twisted, exhausting, uncertain, and full of guilt, but nonetheless, there’s something there.

What was important wasn’t the fireworks, it was that we were together this evening, together in this place, looking up into the sky at the same time.

No matter where you are, you’re always a bit on your own, always an outsider.

Love is the kind of thing that’s already happening by the time you notice it, that’s how it works, and no matter how old you get, that doesn’t change. Except that you can break it up into two entirely distinct types — love where there’s an end in sight and love where there isn’t.

Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely.

That’s the advantage of insomnia. People who go to be early always complain that the night is too short, but for those of us who stay up all night, it can feel as long as a lifetime. You get a lot done

This is what it means to be loved… when someone wants to touch you, to be tender.

The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it’s a kitchen, if it’s a place where they make food, it’s fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. Where tile catching the light (ting! Ting!)” (p. 3).

People aren’t overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.

The night glittered brilliantly then.

Everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.

It was so gorgeous it almost felt like sadness.

Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we’ve ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves.

Things look different depending on your perspective. As I see it, fighting to bridge those gaps isn’t what really matters. The most important thing is to know them inside and out, as differences, and to understand why certain people are the way they are.