Quotes from Banana Yoshimoto

You don't necessarily have to want to become an adult; it happens as a matter of course, as you go, making choices. The important thing, I think, is to choose for yourself. Standing

No matter how dreamlike a love I have found myself in, no matter how delightfully drunk I have been, in my heart I was always aware that my family consisted of only one other person. The space that cannot be filled, no matter how cheerfully a child and an old person are living together—the deathly silence that, panting in a corner of the room, pushes its way in like a shudder. I felt it very early, although no one told me about it.

Perhaps it's because she spends all her time sleeping—she comes and goes just as she pleases in the world of her dreams, she's free to go anywhere she wants. And that gives her access to much more information than people have who are up all the time.

N?u thá»±c sá»± mu?n má»™t mình tá»± l?p thì r?t nên nuôi d??ng má»™t th? gì Ä'ó. NhÆ° là má»™t ??a con hay là lÅ© cây c?nh này này. Lúc Ä'ó, mình s? nh?n ra giá»›i h?n c?a mình. B?i Ä'ó chính là sá»± kh?i ??u cháu ?

I had the impression that her place was near mine, but even by bus it took about twenty minutes. She lived alone in an apartment house, square and white like a block of tofu, on the edge of town.

E' strana la notte: per quelli che si addormentano subito dura solo un attimo, mentre per chi la passa completamente in bianco, diventa così lunga che è come vivere una vita supplementare e sembra quasi un privilegio…

I had the feeling that Nakajima was taking one aspect of me - the straightforward, easy-going part that emerged when I was with him, the cheerful surface that I had inherited from my mom - and blowing it all out of proportion. If so, he might feel terribly betrayed when my dark, somber side eventually showed its face.

I became part of the air that surrounded Sui, and breathed her incomprehensible sadness. I think that part of those feelings live within my soul. Burdened by bad karma, and a soul that beckoned such unfortunate fate, Sui used all the resources she had to make her way through love. I witnessed that.

Però, chi nella vita non conosce almeno una volta la disperazione e non capisce quali cose valgano veramente, diventa adulto senza avere mai capito che cosa sia veramente la gioia.

Al recordar su sonrisa, no sé por qué, me duele el corazón.

At the time, I was still so shrunken into myself I couldn't quite believe what was happening. I'd never dreamed that Mom and I could ever do anything as fun as gorging on an entire cake until our bellies ached. We weren't being hysterical, or depressed. We'd just thought of something nice to do, and done it together. That kind of thing had felt wrong in Meguro, but the new apartment somehow made it possible.

Rituals are more important than we think. Not for the dead, but I think it's the best way to help ourselves accept what happened, and draw a line under it.

fight authority with authority

Everything in life has some good in it And when something awful happens, the goodness stands our even more- it's sad, but that's the truth.

I'll wait until then—I won't forget you. I don't want things to end like this, only having known you during this strange time. But right now, I just can't think about the future.

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.

Things are just things. They can't bring back the dead. it just makes me feel better.

It was as if his tears had nowhere to go, they were meant for god alone.

Diceva: quando ami qualcuno soffri, ti struggi, è un sentimento che non puoi in alcun modo soffocare...

Hay cosas tan duras que dan ganas de apartar la vista. Ni siquiera el amor puede salvarte de todo.

But even in that very brief period of time I was made abundantly aware of the extent to which various things inside me had degenerated without my even knowing it. I'd always hated working, and I'd never cared much about the kinds of jobs I took or whether I had one or not or anything like that, and none of that had changed at all, it wasn't that...it was something like guts, the ability to move on to the next thing when I had to...

It felt like the inside of my stomach had turned completely black. Like a black hole. You could throw in anything you liked, I wouldn't even notice—my head was drifting through the clouds—everything would just go right in, things just kept going in... I was dragging all this black stuff along behind me, it was so heavy I could barely stand.

There are no rules here, except that you have to sit properly at the bar when you drink. People can tell me anything they want. Things they wouldn't usually say, things that wouldn't be acceptable at work—it doesn't matter. That's what this place is for, after all: they come and pay money to buy themselves, their innermost hearts, a bit of freedom." She

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