B. Yoshimoto Quotes & Sayings

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. — Banana Yoshimoto

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

A particular variety of loneliness, like peering deep into the darkness.
It's only natural, when two separate universes touch. — Banana Yoshimoto

I'll never be able to be here again. As the minutes slide by, I move on. The flow of time is something I cannot stop. I haven't a choice. I go. One caravan has stopped, another starts up. There are people I have yet to meet, others I'll never see again. People who are gone before you know it, people who are just passing through. Even as we exchange hellos, they seem to grow transparent. I must keep living with the flowing river before my eyes. — Banana Yoshimoto

We ran into lots of old friends. Friends from elementary school, junior high school, high school. Everyone had matured in their own way, and even as we stood face to face with them they seemed like people from dreams, sudden glimpses through the fences of our tangled memories. We smiled and waved, exchanged a few words, and then walked on in our separate directions. — Banana Yoshimoto

Here in this ocean, in the midst of all this water, with the red flags on those distant buoys flapping in the sea breeze, I find myself unable to treat our house in Tokyo as anything but a dream. — Banana Yoshimoto

It was so gorgeous it almost felt like sadness. — Banana Yoshimoto

And usually, when it's all over, I find that everything has come together surprisingly well. When that happens, I feel like I've been dancing, perfectly in time, with the world. That — Banana Yoshimoto

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

As people we narrowly get by with our lives each day, energy from our soft, delicate actions appearing like cherry blossoms, only once, and once for a short while. Eventually petals fall to the ground. — Banana Yoshimoto

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. — Banana Yoshimoto

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. — Banana Yoshimoto

Why is it that everything I eat when I'm with you is so delicious?' I laughed. 'Could it be that you're satisfying hunger and lust at the same time? — Banana Yoshimoto

The ritual of our daily lives permeate our very bodies. — Banana Yoshimoto

You know, Chihiro, darling- all it takes is one little wrong step and you end up feeling frustrated your whole life, like me. — Banana Yoshimoto

Truly great people emit a light that warms the hearts of those around them. When that light has been put out, a heavy shadow of despair descends. — Banana Yoshimoto

It occurred to me that if I were a ghost, this ambiance was what I'd miss most: the ordinary, day-to-day bustle of the living. Ghosts long, I'm sure, for the stupidest, most unremarkable things. — Banana Yoshimoto

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

We've been very lonely, but we had it easy. Because death is so heavy - we, too young to know about it, couldn't handle it. After this you and I may end up seeing nothing but suffering, difficulty and ugliness, but if only you'll agree to it, I want for us to go on to more difficult places, happier places, what ever comes, together. I want you to make the decision after you're completely better, so take your time thinking about it. In the mean time, though, don't disappear on me. — Banana Yoshimoto

Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed ... (p. 141). — Banana Yoshimoto

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. My — Banana Yoshimoto

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

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. — Banana Yoshimoto

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, — Banana Yoshimoto

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. — Banana Yoshimoto

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. — Banana Yoshimoto

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. — Banana Yoshimoto

The night glittered brilliantly then. — Banana Yoshimoto

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

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. — Banana Yoshimoto