Was that what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities?
BANANA YOSHIMOTOAs 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.
More Banana Yoshimoto Quotes
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Recognizing how totally ignorant you are is the only honest way to deal with people who’ve been through something traumatic.
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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).
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But I have my life, I’m living it. It’s twisted, exhausting, uncertain, and full of guilt, but nonetheless, there’s something there.
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No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die. Without that, I am not alive.
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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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If you don’t say what you’re thinking, you end up lying when you really need to speak up.
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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?
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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.
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What was important wasn’t the fireworks, it was that we were together this evening, together in this place, looking up into the sky at the same time.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).
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I felt how important the simplest things were, like feeling proud, finding something funny, stretching yourself, retreating into yourself.
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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