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

More quotes by 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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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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I felt how important the simplest things were, like feeling proud, finding something funny, stretching yourself, retreating into yourself.
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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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Recognizing how totally ignorant you are is the only honest way to deal with people who've been through something traumatic.
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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The ritual of our daily lives permeate our very bodies.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).
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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Good tea is eloquent enough, it turns out, to change a person's mind.
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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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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Everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.
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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This is what it means to be loved... when someone wants to touch you, to be tender.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Truly great people emit a light that warms the hearts of those around them. When that light has been put out, a heavy shadow of despair descends.
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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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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I love feeling the rhythm of other people's lives. It's like traveling.
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