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No matter where you are, you’re always a bit on your own, always an outsider.

Banana Yoshimoto

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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Long People Talking
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Was that what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities?
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Adults Mean Ugly
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
It was so gorgeous it almost felt like sadness.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Felt Gorgeous Sadness
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
Everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Beautiful Crazy Enough
I spent most of my time thinking, because I didn’t have enough energy to do anything else.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Culture Energy Thinking
Why is it we have so little choice? We live like the lowliest worms. Always defeated – defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love is dying. Sill, to cease living is unacceptable.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Choices Everyone Love Sleep
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
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
Truly happy memories always live on, shining. Over time, one by one, they come back to life.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Back Happy Life Memories Shining
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
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
It was at once a miracle and the most natural thing in the world.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Miracle Natural World
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
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
The night glittered brilliantly then.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Brilliant Glitter Night
Things 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.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Bridges Differences Fighting
Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Disappear Failing Someday

No matter where you are, you’re always a bit on your own, always an outsider.

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No matter where you are, you’re always a bit on your own, always an outsider.

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