black
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It occurred to me that if I were a ghost, this ambiance was what I’d miss most: the ordinary, day-to-day bustle of the living. Ghosts long, I’m sure, for the stupidest, most unremarkable things.

Banana Yoshimoto

As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won’t let my spirit be destroyed.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Feet Rocks Suffering
Recognizing how totally ignorant you are is the only honest way to deal with people who’ve been through something traumatic.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Ignorant People Way
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
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
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
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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Fate Mean Missing
It was so gorgeous it almost felt like sadness.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Felt Gorgeous Sadness
Good tea is eloquent enough, it turns out, to change a person’s mind.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Enough Mind Tea
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
Truly happy memories always live on, shining. Over time, one by one, they come back to life.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Back Happy Life Memories Shining
Every time I look into his eyes I just want to take the ice cream or whatever I’ve got in my hand and rub it into his face. That’s how much I like him.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Eye Hand Ice Cream
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
I really believe that no matter how old people get, they tend to change in certain ways depending on how people treat them – they change their colors.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Believe Color People
When things get really bad, you take comfort in the placeness of a place.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Bad Comfort Place Placeness Thing
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
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
Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Defeated Feet Suffering
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
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
I spent most of my time thinking, because I didn’t have enough energy to do anything else.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Culture Energy Thinking
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
Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Although Always Lonely Raised
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 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
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
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

It occurred to me that if I were a ghost, this ambiance was what I’d miss most: the ordinary, day-to-day bustle of the living. Ghosts long, I’m sure, for the stupidest, most unremarkable things.

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It occurred to me that if I were a ghost, this ambiance was what I’d miss most: the ordinary, day-to-day bustle of the living. Ghosts long, I’m sure, for the stupidest, most unremarkable things.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Banana Yoshimoto Quotes