black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Farewell Goodbye Sky
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Country Grow Up Moving
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).
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Broken Kitchen Light
No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die. Without that, I am not alive.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Alive Matter Want
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
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 that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Beautiful Crazy Enough
On nights like this when the air is so clear, you end up saying things you ordinarily wouldn’t. Without even noticing what you’re doing, you open up your heart and just start talking to the person next to you-you talk as if you have no audience but the glittering stars, far overhead.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Heart Night Stars
Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Disappear Failing Someday
Good tea is eloquent enough, it turns out, to change a person’s mind.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Enough Mind Tea
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
In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions, much of one’s life history is etched in the senses. And things of no particular importance, or irreplaceable things, can suddenly resurface in a café one winter night.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Emotion Flow Much Night Sense Winter
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
Was that what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities?
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Adults Mean Ugly
It was at once a miracle and the most natural thing in the world.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Miracle Natural World
I felt how important the simplest things were, like feeling proud, finding something funny, stretching yourself, retreating into yourself.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Feelings Important Proud

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Banana Yoshimoto Quotes