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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

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Banana Yoshimoto
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: July 24
Essayist
Novelist
Prosaist
Writer
Bunkyo
Yoshimoto Banana
Living
Best
Untouched
Mean
Alone
Thing
Possible
Much
Knowledge
Happiness
Really
Everyone
Way
Lives
Life

More quotes by Banana Yoshimoto

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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?
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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
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As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won't let my spirit be destroyed.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Things look different depending on your perspective. As I see it, fighting to bridge those gaps isn't what really matters. The most important thing is to know them inside and out, as differences, and to understand why certain people are the way they are.
Banana Yoshimoto
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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
Banana Yoshimoto
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People aren't overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.
Banana Yoshimoto
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It was at once a miracle and the most natural thing in the world.
Banana Yoshimoto
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She was still there inside me now, just as she always was: a life put on hold, a memory I didn't know how to handle.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Why is it we have so little choice? We live like the lowliest worms. Always defeated - defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love is dying. Sill, to cease living is unacceptable.
Banana Yoshimoto
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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.
Banana Yoshimoto
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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
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In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions much of one's life history is etched in the senses.
Banana Yoshimoto
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I realized that the world did not exist for my benefit. It followed that the ratio of pleasant and unpleasant things around me would not change. It wasn't up to me. It was clear that the best thing to do was to adopt a sort of muddled cheerfulness.
Banana Yoshimoto
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I saw the sky and sea and sand and the flickering flames of the bonfire through my tears. All at once, it rushed into my head with tremendous speed, and made me feel dizzy. It was beautiful. Everything that happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).
Banana Yoshimoto
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At that moment I had a thrilling sharp intuition. I knew it as if I held it in my hands: In the gloom of death that surrounded the two of us, we were just at the point of approaching and negotiating a gentle curve. If we bypassed it, we would split off into different directions. In that case, we would forever remain just friends.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Good tea is eloquent enough, it turns out, to change a person's mind.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Inching one's way along a steep cliff in the dark: on reaching the highway, one breathes a sigh of relief. Just when one can't take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that
Banana Yoshimoto
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When things get really bad, you take comfort in the placeness of a place.
Banana Yoshimoto