Quotes from Banana Yoshimoto

Yet at all costs I had to keep my hands and body and mind moving. Doing that, I hoped, albeit listlessly, would somehow, someday, lead to a breakthrough. There was no guarantee, but I would try to endure, no matter what, until it came.

Después cuando al fin lo conocí, pensé que transmitía una sensación de aislamiento, no se por qué. Aunque su forma de ser y de hablar eran dulces, me pareció que estaba solo.

El camino está siempre marcado, pero no en un sentido fatalista. Cada instante, con la respiración, con la mirada, y con los días que se repiten, uno tras otro, se va decidiendo espontáneamente.

Die Zeit ist unaufhaltsam und fließt immer weiter. Das tut sie nicht nur, damit man ihr nachtrauert, sondern damit man einen schönen Augenblick nach dem anderen erhaschen kann.

Als ich sehe, wie Harus Haar verspielt im Wind tanzt und völlig zerzaust wird, und das, obwohl das Grau da draußen doch bleischwer in der Luft lastet, erkenne ich auf einmal, wie weit, weit weg die Vergangenheit ist. Weiter als der Tod, ja weiter sogar als die unüberbrückbare Distanz, die zwischen zwei Menschen besteht.

Aunque sea cierto que la buena y la mala suerte existen, depender de ellas es una actitud muy cómoda.

It takes time to get to know people, let alone to tell whether you like each other, so it really makes me wonder, you know, what you're supposed to do if they just keep coming through like a revolving door, in one day and out another, and you don't even have time to figure out who they are?

Sie war wie ein ausgesetztes Katzenjunges, das in der Gosse schwimmt und erbärmlich schreit - diese dämonische, archaische Überlebenskraft.

Quiero seguir sintiendo a toda costa que algún día he de morir. De otro modo, no sentiría que estoy viviendo. Por eso, mi vida es así.

Aunque seamos derrotados como gusanos, hacemos la comida, comemos y dormimos. Todas las personas que amamos mueren una tras otra. Y, a pesar de ello, tenemos que seguir viviendo.

I wanted to strip and dance naked in front of them, because maybe then I could have demolished the fake, slimy atmosphere they had created.

When you love someone, you want to know. Even about the things that are hard for them.

Non ricordavo più se in passato mi fosse già accaduto, ma nell'affrontare il buio che ognuno ha dentro di sé dopo una ferita profonda, distrutta dalla stanchezza, all'improvviso un'energia sconosciuta aveva cominciato a riemergere.

Everything in my life revolves around people playing at being something. But that's only because we have to be that way in order to get on with our lives. Just because people are playing doesn't mean their hearts aren't in it.

From the moment we met, I as a butterfly that flew into that space that was his soul, a room where the light had begun to dim.

I read in some book that if you try to hold people back too much when they're dying it keeps them from being reborn as a Buddha

When you've fallen in love, broken up, lost a love one, and start getting older, everything seems the same. I couldn't tell what was good and what was bad, what was better and what was worse. I simply didn't want to have any more bad memories. I wished that time could stop, and summer will never come to an end. I felt vulnerable.

Soy hermosa. Yo brillo. Ya me he hecho a la idea de que por atraer a los demás, aunque sientas por ellos poco interés, hay que pagar un tributo. Por eso, en el caso de que sea asesinada, piensa que ha sido un accidente.

Soon it would be all over. All of this would wither away, it would all disappear. We'd go our separate ways. Again and again this conviction crashed over us.

In retrospect I realize that fate was a ladder on which, at the time, I could not afford to miss a single rung. To skip out on even one scene would have meant never making it to the top, although it would have been by far the easier choice. What motivated me was probably that little light still left in my half-dead heart, glittering in the darkness. Yet without it, perhaps, I might have slept better.

Just being myself made me terribly sad.

Quando una persona ti racconta qualcosa di importante, la questione non finisce lì, un po' come quando ti prestano del denaro. Essere il confidente di qualcuno comporta una responsabilità.

El arrepentimiento nunca llega antes

Even if this night we were spending together and everything else was just going to disappear into the past, that was all right - and it seemed to me that I held this alrightness preciously in my hands, and that it was glittering there.