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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.

Banana Yoshimoto

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
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
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
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
Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Bed Exist Nothing World
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
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
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
Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Although Always Lonely Raised
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

Beautiful Crazy Flames
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
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
Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Disappear Failing Someday
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
I love feeling the rhythm of other people’s lives. It’s like traveling.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Feelings Love People Rhythm Travel
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
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Levels Limits Real
No matter where you are, you’re always a bit on your own, always an outsider.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Inspire Matter Travel
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
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
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
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 YOSHIMOTO

Adults Despair Mean
Over and over, we begin again.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Bare Over Tree
The ritual of our daily lives permeate our very bodies.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Body Daily Life Ritual
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Dark Light Lonely
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
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

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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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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Popular Authors

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