Quotes from Banana Yoshimoto

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.

Truly happy memories always live on, shining. Over time, one by one, they come back to life.

In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions much of one's life history is etched in the senses.

You know, Chihiro, darling- all it takes is one little wrong step and you end up feeling frustrated your whole life, like me.

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.

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.

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?

Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.

I should have told her at the time. I could have taken a deep breath, looked away, and forced myself to say it.

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.

That's the advantage of insomnia. People who go to be early always complain that the night is too short, but for those of us who stay up all night, it can feel as long as a lifetime. You get a lot done

In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions much of one's life history is etched in the senses.

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...

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.

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

The sky was incredibly far away, and beautiful enough to make a person wonder why our hearts are never so free.

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.

Ultimately, though, it's living people that frighten me the most. It's always seemed to me that nothing could be scarier than a person, because as dreadful places can be, they're still just places; and no matter how awful ghosts might seem, they're just dead people. I always thought that the most terrifying things anyone could ever think up were the things living people came up with.

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!)

I love feeling the rhythm of other people's lives. It's like traveling.

It was at once a miracle and the most natural thing in the 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.

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.

Recognizing how totally ignorant you are is the only honest way to deal with people who've been through something traumatic.