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It didn't matter whether he was nearby or far away. His image would drift up into your mind just when you least expected it, shocking you, making your chest pound. Making your heart ache.
Banana Yoshimoto -
Over and over, we begin again.
Banana Yoshimoto
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You know, Chihiro, darling- all it takes is one little wrong step and you end up feeling frustrated your whole life, like me.
Banana Yoshimoto -
Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).
Banana Yoshimoto -
In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions much of one's life history is etched in the senses.
Banana Yoshimoto -
It was at once a miracle and the most natural thing in the world.
Banana Yoshimoto -
Of course, it’s true that sometimes the pink at sunrise somehow seems brighter than the pink at sunset, and that when you’re feeling down the the landscape seems darker too - you see things through the filter of your own sensibility. But the things themselves, out there, they don’t change. They existed, and that’s all there is to it.
Banana Yoshimoto -
Me, 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 Yoshimoto
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I spent most of my time thinking, because I didn't have enough energy to do anything else.
Banana Yoshimoto -
I 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 Yoshimoto -
For ten years I had been protected, wrapped up in something like a blanket that had been stitched together from all kinds of different things. But people never notice that warmth until after they've emerged. You don't even notice that you've been inside until it's too late for you ever to go back-- that's how perfect the temperature of that blanket is.
Banana Yoshimoto -
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.
Banana Yoshimoto -
Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.
Banana Yoshimoto -
Love 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 Yoshimoto
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Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated.
Banana Yoshimoto -
On nights like this when the air is so clear, you end up saying things you ordinarily wouldn’t. Without even noticing what you’re doing, you open up your heart and just start talking to the person next to you—you talk as if you have no audience but the glittering stars, far overhead.
Banana Yoshimoto -
People aren't overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.
Banana Yoshimoto -
I love feeling the rhythm of other people's lives. It's like traveling.
Banana Yoshimoto -
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.
Banana Yoshimoto -
No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die. Without that, I am not alive.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Time expands and contracts. When it expands, it’s like pitch: it folds people in its arms and holds them forever in its embrace. It doesn’t let us go so easily. Sometimes you go back again to the place you’ve just come from, stop and close your eyes, and realize that not a second has passed, and time just leaves you there, stranded, in the darkness
Banana Yoshimoto -
I really believe that no matter how old people get, they tend to change in certain ways depending on how people treat them - they change their colors.
Banana Yoshimoto -
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!)” (p. 3).
Banana Yoshimoto -
I never tell my boyfriend that I'm busy when I'm not. No matter how effective they are, cheap techniques like that just don't agree with me. So it's always okay, it's always all right. In my opinion the surest way to hook a man is to be as open with him as possible.
Banana Yoshimoto