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

Banana Yoshimoto

People who are going to get along really well know it almost as soon as they meet. You spend a little while talking and everyone starts to feel this conviction, you’re all equally sure that you’re at the beginning of something good. That’s how it is when you meet people you’re going to be with for a long time.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

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

Inspirational Life Love
People aren’t overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Defeat Overcoming People
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

Knows Mean Way
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Bridges Differences Fighting
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

Breeze Dream Ocean Sea
Me, when I’m utterly exhausted by it all, when 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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Home Lonely Skins
Over and over, we begin again.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Bare Over Tree
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

Hunger Laugh Lust
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

Feelings Frustrated Littles
I held the feeling in my heart; the urge to discuss it died out. There was all the time in the world. In the endless repetition of other nights, other mornings, this moment, too, might become a dream.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Dream Heart Morning
I spent most of my time thinking, because I didn’t have enough energy to do anything else.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Culture Energy Thinking
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Choices Everyone Love Sleep
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

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

Guilt Twist Uncertain
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Awful Goodness Out Standing
Inching one’s way along a steep cliff in the dark: on reaching the highway, one breathes a sigh of relief. Just when one can’t take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Dark Heart relief Sigh
The sky was incredibly far away, and beautiful enough to make a person wonder why our hearts are never so free.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Beautiful Heart Sky
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Benefits Ratio World
When someone tells you something big, it’s like you’re taking money from them, and there’s no way it will ever go back to being the way it was. You have to take responsibility for listening.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Listening Responsibility Way
I should have told her at the time. I could have taken a deep breath, looked away, and forced myself to say it.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Deep Breath Taken
Why were we so far apart, even when we were together? It was a nice loneliness, like the sensation of washing your face in cold water.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Loneliness Nice Water
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

Long Tired Voice
It was so gorgeous it almost felt like sadness.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Felt Gorgeous Sadness
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

Days Long Missing Ordinary
I never tell my boyfriend that I’m busy when I’m not. No matter how effective they are, cheap techniques like that just don’t agree with me. So it’s always okay, it’s always all right. In my opinion the surest way to hook a man is to be as open with him as possible.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Boyfriend Men Technique
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

Heart Light People

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

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

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