Quotes from Banana Yoshimoto

Sucede que el corazón acaba velando en la distancia la belleza de las cosas ya vistas, desde las más intensamente vividas a las más pálidas; todo quedaba completamente envuelto en el corazón y ahora se sumergía en el paisaje que avanzaba hacia nosotros moviéndose velozmente

Okay,' I said, and waving, we parted. The feeling traveled to some infinitely distant place and disappeared.

Jeder Mensch hat dieses kleine schwache Etwas, das zitternd am Boden seines Herzens liegt, und bisweilen ist es sicher besser, es hochzunehmen, sich darum zu kümmern und den Tränen freien Lauf zu lassen.

Thanks so much for seeing, the first time you met us, that even though we're like ghosts, the two of us, even though we're not supposed to exist, we are alive.

I had come to understand that despair does not necessarily result in annihilation, that one can go on as usual despite of it...

Because the sky is high and lonely, and it makes me feel very alone, and that makes my heart dance, and then I feel stronger. But at the same time, there's this energy in the air; it's a time of waiting, before winter really sets in.

Alguna vez, sin falta, todos iremos dispersándonos en la oscuridad del tiempo y desapareceremos...

People tend to think they break up because they get tired of the person they've been with---that it's someone's decision, either yours or theirs. But this really isn't true. Periods in our lives end the way seasons change. That's all there is to it. Human willpower can't change that--which means, if you look at it another way, that we might as well enjoy ourselves until that day arrives.

Die wirklich schönen Erinnerungen bleiben lebendig und haben einen unauslöschlichen Glanz. Sie pulsieren schmerzlich im Fluss der Zeit.

Maybe I was afraid of seeing anything as absolute. I wanted to keep moving, like a stream, and I wanted to go on watching everything from a distance. That's how I was. I felt close to people, but I didn't have any friends I could really share my life with, our hearts melting together. Something always failed to communicate.

All the possibilities for growth seemed to be closed off for us. Like plants in a greenhouse, we depended on each other, but neither of us enjoyed the feelings of release or openness that one would wish from such a relationship. We just sat together in the dark, licking each other's wounds and clinging together for warmth, like an old couple.

Love is love. It doesn't matter what kind it is.

I have these two different images of her etched into my memory: one as this idealized mother, and the other as a sort of pressure weighing down on me - obsessive, feminine love.

How brutal life was! How fleshly, and mundane. I was reeling, from having understood it for the first time. What was lost would never return. In its place, I now knew the smell of Chazawa-Dori in the rain.

Now only the kitchen and I are left. It's just a little nicer than being all alone.

One of the things you lost sight of when you lived in the city was the sense of how much power an individual had.

People aren't overcome by situations or outside forces; defeat invades from within.

Amare non significa soltanto preoccuparsi l'uno per l'altra, abbracciarsi, voler stare insieme. Ci sono momenti in cui comunichiamo più con il silenzio che con le parole.

When people start getting depressed there's just no end to it—things just seem to get worse and worse.

Parting and death are both terribly painful. But to keep nursing the memory of a love so great you can't believe you'll ever love again is a useless drain on a woman's energies.

For waving good-bye, I thank you.

In retrospect I realise that fate was a ladder on which, at the time, I could not afford to miss a single rung.

I'd assumed that once I'd passed the age of twenty, I'd gained the power to do everything alone. But I'd been wrong about that, and this just brought it home to me, again, that I still had a long way to go.

The only thing I'd understand right from the very beginning was that our love was supported by loneliness. That neither one of us could haul ourselves up out of the deadly numbness we felt when we lay together, so silent, in darkness so isolating it seemed to shine. This was the edge of night.