black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Inspirational Life Love
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
If you don’t say what you’re thinking, you end up lying when you really need to speak up.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Lying Needs Thinking
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
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
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
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
I spent most of my time thinking, because I didn’t have enough energy to do anything else.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Culture Energy Thinking
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Handle Memories Stills
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

Knows Mean Way
Was that what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities?
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Adults Mean Ugly
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
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
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Giving Light Nice
Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Although Always Lonely Raised
I felt how important the simplest things were, like feeling proud, finding something funny, stretching yourself, retreating into yourself.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Feelings Important Proud
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 YOSHIMOTO

Awful Goodness Out Standing
I was happy. I loved the night, I loved t so much it almost hurt. In the night everything seemed possible. I wasn’t sleepy at all.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Hurt Night Sleepy
In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions much of one’s life history is etched in the senses.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Emotion Flow Sense Uncertain
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
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
Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

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

Bed Exist Nothing World
People aren’t overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Defeat Overcoming People
The ritual of our daily lives permeate our very bodies.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Body Daily Life Ritual

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

More Banana Yoshimoto Quotes