Banana Yoshimoto Quotes

With a cold"
she spoke evenly, lowering her eyes a little
"now is the hardest time. Maybe even harder than dying. But this is probably as bad as it can get. You might come to fear the next time you get a cold; it will be as bad as this, but if you just hold steady, it won't be. For the rest of your life. That's how it works. You could take the negative view and live in fear: Will it happen again? But it won't hurt so much if you just accept it as a part of life." With that she looked up at me, smiling.

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I became part of the air that surrounded Sui, and breathed her incomprehensible sadness. I think that part of those feelings live within my soul. Burdened by bad karma, and a soul that beckoned such unfortunate fate, Sui used all the resources she had to make her way through love. I witnessed that.

I thought for a moment.
Isn't it strange how we unconsciously search for something that will make us cry, only when we want to, and only when we're not able to?

I spent most of my time thinking, because I didn't have enough energy to do anything else.

Every time we hugged, I met words that were not words.

The lake has all sorts of different faces. And so it's always fresh.

Be sure to keep your tummy warm, try to relax, both your heart and your body, try not to get flustered. Live like a flower. You have that right.

I had come to understand that despair does not necessarily result in annihilation, that one can go on as usual despite of it...

No one can survive childhood without being wounded. Everyone remembers at least one time when their parents rejected them, pushed them away, even though they may have still been in the womb, blind, and unable to speak. That's why, as adults, we all look for someone to become our parents again, and for someone to look after us in times of need. And we search for a person to live with who can provide the companionship we so desperately want.

The only thing I'd understand right from the very beginning was that our love was supported by loneliness. That neither one of us could haul ourselves up out of the deadly numbness we felt when we lay together, so silent, in darkness so isolating it seemed to shine. This was the edge of night.

Don't you find that it … hurts, not letting even half of your emotions out? I see you've overcome your hatred for your parents with that easygoing love you were born with. And in the process you started thinking about things, and you ended up taking on this docile personality - but aren't you really more spirited and free, more spoiled, and extremely into sex?

You have the nicest window, you know? None of the others can even compete. It´s not flashy like the others, or bleary – your window gives of this nice, quiet light.

Your love is different from mine. What I mean is, when you close your eyes, for that moment, the center of the universe comes to reside within you. And you become a small figure within that vastness, which spreads without limit behind you, and continues to expand at tremendous speed, to engulf all of my past, even before I was born, and every word I've ever written, and each view I've seen, and all the constellations, and the darkness of outer space that surrounds the small blue ball that is earth. Then, when you open your eyes, all that disappears.
I anticipate the next time you are troubled and must close your eyes again.
The way we think may be completely different, but you and I are an ancient, archetypal couple, the original man and woman. We are the model for Adam and Eve. For all couples in love, there comes a moment when a man gazes at a woman with the very same kind of realization. It is an infinite helix, the dance of two souls resonating, like the twist of DNA, like the vast universe.


Oddly, at that moment, she looked over at me and smiled. As if in response to what I'd been thinking, she said, "That was beautiful. I'll never forget it.

If someone could give me some sort of evidence that what we're doing is really love, I'd be so tremendously relieved ...

I used to think that people are were supposed to be more strange, and dirty, and full of all sorts of emotions, pity and nobility, with infinite layers of complications.

This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the next-and I didn't want to forget a single one.

I had the impression that her place was near mine, but even by bus it took about twenty minutes. She lived alone in an apartment house, square and white like a block of tofu, on the edge of town.

I had been walking in silence for so long,I had almost forgotten what my own voice sounded like.My knees were tired;my toes were beginning to ache.

If I'd known things would end this way, we could have gone and done all that stuff instead of making excuses about my job, about how your mother couldn't spare the time,

Things are just things. They can't bring back the dead. it just makes me feel better.

If you
or anyone on this train, for that matter
thought of life as a kind of train, instead of worrying only about your usual destinations, you'd be surprised how far you could go, just with the money you have in your wallet right now.

Most people are constantly perpetrating little acts of violence on others, even when they don't mean to.

There are no rules here, except that you have to sit properly at the bar when you drink. People can tell me anything they want. Things they wouldn't usually say, things that wouldn't be acceptable at work - it doesn't matter. That's what this place is for, after all: they come and pay money to buy themselves, their innermost hearts, a bit of freedom." She

Why is it we have so little choice? We live like the lowliest worms. Always defeated - defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love is dying. Sill, to cease living is unacceptable.

But that's only because we have to be that way in order to get on with our lives. Just because people are playing doesn't mean their hearts aren't in it.

For some reason I keep getting connected to men who have something to do with plants.

When we start something new, at first it is very muddy, and clouded. But soon, it becomes a clean stream, whose flows conducts itself quietly, through spontaneous movements.

There was a real sense of comfort but at the same time it felt oddly tense. The feeling that every little things we said, these conversations, at any moment, they could stop being possible, and so they were precious, it was that feeling, and the sense of the miracle of this shared moment, here and now. Why were we so far apart, even when we are together? It was anice loneliness, like th sensation of washing your face with cold water.

For ten years I had been protected, wrapped up in something like a blanket that had been stitched together from all kinds of different things. But people never notice that warmth until after they've emerged. You don't even notice that you've been inside until it's too late for you ever to go back
that's how perfect the temperature of that blanket is.

He was quiet in the way people are when they believe the world would get along just fine without them.

If a person hasn't ever experienced true despair, she grows old never knowing how to evaluate where she is in life; never understanding what joy really is.

It didn't matter whether he was nearby or far away. His image would drift up into your mind just when you least expected it, shocking you, making your chest pound. Making your heart ache.

In places where a loved one has died, time stops for eternity. If I stand on the very spot, one says to oneself, like a prayer, might I feel the pain he felt? They say that on a visit to an old castle or whatever, the history of the place, the presence of people who walked there many years ago, can be felt in the body. Before, when I heard things like that, I would think, what are they talking about? But i felt I understood it now.

I realized that from now on, my mom's life and mine would have to be completely, unmistakably different. Nothing about us was the same: the times we lived in, the ways we regarded the world, the things we valued.

Nakajima's presence didn't put any pressure on me, either. Quite the opposite: there was a warmth in the core of my chest when he was around.

She could warm up the air, and then gently blow it out, just like a lily. She smelled of a syrup made of boiled-down despair.

Now only the kitchen and I are left. It's just a little nicer than being all alone.

you find yourself face-to-face with the enormousness of the world as a whole.

At that moment, I was truly without words. I realized that the world didn't exist by virtue of my mind. On the contrary, he and I and everyone else were swept up in a great whirlpool, swirling around constantly and not knowing where we're bound. Our sensations of pleasure and suffering, our thoughts, none of these things can stop the motion. For the first time, I was able to step away from my imagined position in the center of the universe and see myself as part of something larger. This was my revelation, and I now felt
what? Not particularly happy or sad, but just a bit precarious, as if I'd relaxed some muscle that I hadn't needed to use all along.

I got dressed to begin another day. Over and over, we begin again. (Kitchen, 103)

And when something awful happens, the goodness stands out even more ...

That night, having wriggled down into my futon all alone, I found myself in the grips of a wrenching sadness. I was only a child, but I knew the feeling that came when you parted with something, and I felt that pain. I lay gazing up at the ceiling , feeling the sleek stiffness of the well-starched sheets against my skin. My distress was a seed that would grow into an understanding of what it meant to say goodbye. In contrast to the heavy ache I would come to know later on in life, this was tiny and fresh – a green bud of pain with a bright halo of light rimming its edges.

I read in some book that if you try to hold people back too much when they're dying it keeps them from being reborn as a Buddha,

So, have you been enjoying yourself these days, Kazami?'
I'm having lots of fun.'
It was true. That made the sense of regret even keener, that this time in my life would soon be a thing of the past. I felt as if I could understand a little of what my mother had been through, and the feelings she may have had at different times. I wasn't a child anymore, and this made me feel awfully lonesome, and utterly alone.

Maybe I had been waiting for this. Maybe all I had been hoping for was a bed in which to be able to stop thinking, just for a little while, about what happened before and what would happen in the future. I was too sad to be able to sleep in the same bed with anyone; that would only make the sadness worse.

As well as the way he always said Itadakimasu, quietly, before he started eating.

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

To the extent that I had come to understand that despair does not necessarily result in annihilation, that one can go on as usual in spite of it, I had become hardened. Was this what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities? I didn't like it, but it made it easier to go on.

Nakajima's past would always be there, so the foundation could crumble at any moment. That's what happens, I realized, when people destroy other people.

But every time my thoughts reached this point, every time, my desire to speak would vanish. And so we remained precisely as we were, making no waves, at a standstill.

My fury was lofty, pure, cool. It was an emotion that none of these people, struggling so hard to impose a shape on life when life has no shape, could begin to understand.

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

willingness to give in is rampant in this society of ours.

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.

But even in that very brief period of time I was made abundantly aware of the extent to which various things inside me had degenerated without my even knowing it. I'd always hated working, and I'd never cared much about the kinds of jobs I took or whether I had one or not or anything like that, and none of that had changed at all, it wasn't that...it was something like guts, the ability to move on to the next thing when I had to...

I felt how important the simplest things were, like feeling proud, finding something funny, stretching yourself, retreating into yourself.

There's someone I might be getting closer to, that's all. But it's not quite coming together yet. I think I'm not ready, either," I said. "Have you got ED?" she said. "Um, no, for a number of different reasons," I said, "but it might be something similar.

Sooner or later people are definitely going to give up if you don't give them back as much as they're giving you.

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

in order to grab on to those tiny profits people studiously adopt another perspective, keeping their true opinions to themselves, and no one takes responsibility, everyone just huddles together on some middle ground, and it all gets less and less clear, yet in the end everyone ends up being crammed into a rigid, unyielding framework. I've seen the same story play out over and over again. But

The night glittered brilliantly then.

I really believe that no matter how old people get, they tend to change in certain ways depending on how people treat them - they change their colors.

I was happy. I loved the night, I loved t so much it almost hurt. In the night everything seemed possible. I wasn't sleepy at all.

My patients focus every ounce of their energy on getting me to share their feelings, acquainting me with every nuance of their anger and pain. Yet I must remain calm, detached. It's a little like trying to ignore a plate of delicious food when you're really hungry. When it beckons you, there's no problem with enjoying the aroma and appreciating it with your eyes, but at some point you have to separate yourself and realize, like a professional waiter does, that it's not your own. It's my job to ignore those plates heaped with delicious morsels and just carry them where they need to go.

Perhaps there are people in this world who love their fountain pens with every fiber of their being - and that's very sad. If you're not in love with him, you can understand him.

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

I wished my heart would break and get it over with.

Eriko raised me that way," he said, laughing. "If I didn't open the door for her, she'd get mad and refuse to get in the car."
"Even though she was a man!" I said, laughing.
"Right, right, even though she was a man.

Listen kiddo, by the time you grow up you'll have collected a whole lot of this 'dirt of life' stuff, right, you won't know where it's coming from but it'll pile up, and clothes and pearls won't look as beautiful to you as they do now -- that's for sure. The problem is that dirt, see? You can't ever settle down in one place, you've got to live like you're always, always staring way off into the distance.

I got up and sprinted into the ocean, chasing my father. I'm in love with the moment when the water switches from being so cold you want to leap up into the air to something that feels just right against your skin.

No, I just wanted to recapture the incredibly vivid love we'd had at first- the love I'd shared with the tall man standing next to me, with the man I adored.

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 ...

My loneliness was an important part of my own little universe, not some pathological disease that needs to be gotten [sic] rid of.

May the memory of this moment, here, the glowing impression of the two of us facing each other in this warm, bright place drinking lovely hot tea, help save him, even a little bit.

The intensity of a person unafraid of death, at the end of his rope.

The days I'd passed with my mom before she died were still there, it seemed, seared into the corners of my heart.
The atmosphere of the station brought it all back. I could see myself running to the hospital, glad to be seeing my mother again. You never know you're happy until later. Because physical sensations like smells and exhaustion don't figure into our memories, I guess. Only the good bits bob up into view.
I was always startled by the snatches of memory that I saw as happy, how they came.
This time, it was the feeling I got when I stepped out onto the platform. The sense of what it had been like to be on my way to see my mom, for her still to be alive, if only for the time being, if only for that day. The happiness of that knowledge had come back to life inside me.
And the loneliness of that moment. The helplessness.

They could smile back and forth without speaking, like soldiers who had fought side by side. The

I realized that the world did not exist for my benefit. It followed that the ratio of pleasant and unpleasant things around me would not change. It wasn't up to me. It was clear that the best thing to do was to adopt a sort of muddled cheerfulness.

Just when one can't take anymore, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that.

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing.

Looking out at the lake, drinking good tea. That's his only luxury.
And what an enormous luxury that was.

His smile was so bright as he stood in my doorstep that I zoomed in for a closeup on his pupils. I couldn't take my eyes off him. I think I heard a spirit call my name.

Her eyes were those of someone who's just fallen in love, someone who sees nothing but her lover, someone who has no fear of anything. The eyes of someone who believes that every dream will come true, that reality will move if you just give it a push.

Thanks so much for seeing, the first time you met us, that even though we're like ghosts, the two of us, even though we're not supposed to exist, we are alive.

Everything in life has some good in it. And when something awful happens, the goodness stands out even more
it's sad, but that's the truth.

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

Time expands and contracts. When it expands, it's like pitch: it folds people in its arms and holds them forever in its embrace. It doesn't let us go so easily. Sometimes you go back again to the place you've just come from, stop and close your eyes, and realize that not a second has passed, and time just leaves you there, stranded, in the darkness

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!)

I have these two different images of her etched into my memory: one as this idealized mother, and the other as a sort of pressure weighing down on me - obsessive, feminine love.

Maybe I was afraid of seeing anything as absolute. I wanted to keep moving, like a stream, and I wanted to go on watching everything from a distance.
That's how I was. I felt close to people, but I didn't have any friends I could really share my life with, our hearts melting together. Something always failed to communicate.

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

With Lizard, I felt overwhelmed by the desire to touch her skin, to kiss her, hold her, make love to her,no matter how it happened, I just had to have her, Lizard and no one else. Right then and there. Tears came to my eyes, I wanted her so much.

From the moment we met, I as a butterfly that flew into that space that was his soul, a room where the light had begun to dim.

I wanted to hold everything in place with my thin little arm and weak spirit. I wanted to do what I could with my unreliable body to try and deal with the many scary things that were going to start happening from now on. I wanted to try.

beyond that, I couldn't say. There's no point thinking about the future. That

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

Soon it would be all over. All of this would wither away, it would all disappear. We'd go our separate ways. Again and again this conviction crashed over us.

He doesn't look like a gangster, but then he's not the office worker type, either ... some kind of entrepreneur maybe, or, - wait, I've got it! He looks like he writes manga! Either that or a chiropractor, I guess.

That's because you think about everything in words ... You can go around and around the same question all you like, and never find an answer. I know that's how you cope, how you get through time, so I've never thought it was immature, or unhelpful. But there's another way of doing it: to sit with an empty space, and just look at it, without thinking anything, just enduring. Some people can do that.

All I wanted was to get through this as quickly as possible, to see the day when memories be just memories.