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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
Thing
Possible
Much
Knowledge
Really
Happiness
Way
Everyone
Life
Lives
Living
Best
Untouched
Mean
Alone

More quotes by Banana Yoshimoto

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Was that what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities?
Banana Yoshimoto
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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 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
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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 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
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I was happy. I loved the night, I loved t so much it almost hurt. In the night everything seemed possible. I wasn't sleepy at all.
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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I had been walking in silence for so long,I had almost forgotten what my own voice sounded like.My knees were tiredmy toes were beginning to ache.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.
Banana Yoshimoto
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I wonder what it felt to move to a country where you didn't grow up. I had thought about that often since my sister got married. Do you become a character in a story native to that land, or do you, somewhere in your heart, want to return to your homeland.
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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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
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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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Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).
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
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Every time I look into his eyes I just want to take the ice cream or whatever I've got in my hand and rub it into his face. That's how much I like him.
Banana Yoshimoto
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It occurred to me that if I were a ghost, this ambiance was what I'd miss most: the ordinary, day-to-day bustle of the living. Ghosts long, I'm sure, for the stupidest, most unremarkable things.
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 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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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?
Banana Yoshimoto