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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

This is what it means to be loved… when someone wants to touch you, to be tender.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Mean Someone Tender Want
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
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
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
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
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
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
Good tea is eloquent enough, it turns out, to change a person’s mind.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Enough Mind Tea
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
The night glittered brilliantly then.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Brilliant Glitter Night
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
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
Over and over, we begin again.
BANANA YOSHIMOTO

Bare Over Tree
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
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
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 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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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