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 YOSHIMOTOEverything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.
More Banana Yoshimoto Quotes
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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.
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The night glittered brilliantly then.
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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.
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Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated.
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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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it’ll be this kind of deep blue”she said. “The kind of color that somehow sucks your eyes and your ears and all your words -the color of a completely closed-in night
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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
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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.
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Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).
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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.
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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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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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I wonder what it felt to move to a country where you didn’t grow up. I had thought about that often since my sister got married. Do you become a character in a story native to that land, or do you, somewhere in your heart, want to return to your homeland.
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Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.
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I saw the sky and sea and sand and the flickering flames of the bonfire through my tears. All at once, it rushed into my head with tremendous speed, and made me feel dizzy. It was beautiful. Everything that happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO