Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.
BANANA YOSHIMOTOSometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.
BANANA YOSHIMOTOIt 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 YOSHIMOTOInching one’s way along a steep cliff in the dark: on reaching the highway, one breathes a sigh of relief. Just when one can’t take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that
BANANA YOSHIMOTOTo 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 YOSHIMOTOEverything 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 YOSHIMOTOTruly 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 YOSHIMOTOHere in this ocean, in the midst of all this water, with the red flags on those distant buoys flapping in the sea breeze, I find myself unable to treat our house in Tokyo as anything but a dream.
BANANA YOSHIMOTOPeople aren’t overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.
BANANA YOSHIMOTOWhy 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 YOSHIMOTONothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).
BANANA YOSHIMOTOI 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 YOSHIMOTOMe, 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 YOSHIMOTOThe ritual of our daily lives permeate our very bodies.
BANANA YOSHIMOTOThe night glittered brilliantly then.
BANANA YOSHIMOTOLove is the kind of thing that’s already happening by the time you notice it, that’s how it works, and no matter how old you get, that doesn’t change. Except that you can break it up into two entirely distinct types — love where there’s an end in sight and love where there isn’t.
BANANA YOSHIMOTOHer 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