Recognizing how totally ignorant you are is the only honest way to deal with people who’ve been through something traumatic.
BANANA YOSHIMOTOI 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.
More Banana Yoshimoto Quotes
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Even when I try to stir myself up, I just get irritated because I can’t make anything come out. And in the middle of the night I lie here thinking about all this. If I don’t get back on track somehow, I’m dead, that’s the sense I get. There isn’t a single strong emotion inside me.
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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.
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I should have told her at the time. I could have taken a deep breath, looked away, and forced myself to say it.
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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.
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I love feeling the rhythm of other people’s lives. It’s like traveling.
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Fate is a ladder on which you cannot afford to miss a single rung. To skip out on even one step would mean you’ll never make it to the top.
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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.
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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.
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The ritual of our daily lives permeate our very bodies.
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She was still there inside me now, just as she always was: a life put on hold, a memory I didn’t know how to handle.
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I felt how important the simplest things were, like feeling proud, finding something funny, stretching yourself, retreating into yourself.
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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.
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The night glittered brilliantly then.
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Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).
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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






