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Was that what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities?

Banana Yoshimoto

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Banana Yoshimoto
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: July 24
Essayist
Novelist
Prosaist
Writer
Bunkyo
Yoshimoto Banana
Ambiguities
Ambiguity
Adult
Ugly
Adults
Means
Live
Mean

More quotes by Banana Yoshimoto

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When things get really bad, you take comfort in the placeness of a place.
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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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 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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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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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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Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely.
Banana Yoshimoto
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Why were we so far apart, even when we were together? It was a nice loneliness, like the sensation of washing your face in cold water.
Banana Yoshimoto
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There are many, many difficult times, god knows. If a person wants to stand on her own two feet, I recommend undertaking the care and feeding of something. It could be children, or it could be house plants, you know? By doing that you come to understand your own limitations. That's where it starts.
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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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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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 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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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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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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I love feeling the rhythm of other people's lives. It's like traveling.
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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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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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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In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions much of one's life history is etched in the senses.
Banana Yoshimoto