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 YOSHIMOTOThings 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.
More Banana Yoshimoto Quotes
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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.
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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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Recognizing how totally ignorant you are is the only honest way to deal with people who’ve been through something traumatic.
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You know, Chihiro, darling- all it takes is one little wrong step and you end up feeling frustrated your whole life, like me.
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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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That’s the advantage of insomnia. People who go to be early always complain that the night is too short, but for those of us who stay up all night, it can feel as long as a lifetime. You get a lot done
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The ritual of our daily lives permeate our very bodies.
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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.
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But I have my life, I’m living it. It’s twisted, exhausting, uncertain, and full of guilt, but nonetheless, there’s something there.
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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!)” (p. 3).
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No matter where you are, you’re always a bit on your own, always an outsider.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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