Banana Yoshimoto Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• 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

  Eye, Ice Cream, Hands

  Banana Yoshimoto, Michael Emmerich (2002). “Goodbye Tsugumi”, p.110, Grove Press

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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

  Ordinary Days, Long, Missing

  Banana Yoshimoto (2011). “The Lake”, p.31, Melville House

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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

  Lust, Hunger, Laughed

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.100, Grove Press

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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. And things of no particular importance, or irreplaceable things, can suddenly resurface in a café one winter night.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Winter, Night, Ebb And Flow

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.75, Grove Press

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• We ran into lots of old friends. Friends from elementary school, junior high school, high school. Everyone had matured in their own way, and even as we stood face to face with them they seemed like people from dreams, sudden glimpses through the fences of our tangled memories. We smiled and waved, exchanged a few words, and then walked on in our separate directions.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Dream, Memories, School

  Banana Yoshimoto (2002). “Goodbye Tsugumi”, p.117, Grove Press

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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

  Children, Feet, Two

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.41, Grove Press

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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

  Benefits, World, Ratios

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.81, Grove Press

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• The way we think may be completely different, but you and I are an ancient, archetypal couple, the original man and woman. We are the model for Adam and Eve. For all couples in love, there comes a moment when a man gazes at a woman with the very same kind of realization. It is an infinite helix, the dance of two souls resonating, like the twist of DNA, like the vast universe.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Couple, Men, Thinking

  Banana Yoshimoto, Ann Sherif (1996). “Lizard”, p.66, Simon and Schuster

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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

  Heart, Dark, Sigh Of Relief

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.60, Grove Press

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• When someone tells you something big, it's like you're taking money from them, and there's no way it will ever go back to being the way it was. You have to take responsibility for listening.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Responsibility, Listening, Way

  Banana Yoshimoto (2011). “The Lake”, p.41, Melville House

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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

  Men, My Boyfriend, Technique

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• Ultimately, though, it's living people that frighten me the most. It's always seemed to me that nothing could be scarier than a person, because as dreadful places can be, they're still just places; and no matter how awful ghosts might seem, they're just dead people. I always thought that the most terrifying things anyone could ever think up were the things living people came up with.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Thinking, People, Might

  Banana Yoshimoto, Michael Emmerich (2006). “Hardboiled: & Hard Luck”, p.10, Grove Press

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• Chilled-looking people walking along the riverside, the snow beginning, faintly, to pile up on the roofs of cars, the bare trees shaking their heads left and right, dry leaves tossing in the wind. The silver of the metal window sash sparkling coldly. Soon after, I heard sensei call, "Mikage! Are you awake? It's snowing, look! It's snowing!" "I'm coming!" I called out, standing up. I got dressed to begin another day. Over and over, we begin again.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Wind, People, Snow

  Banana Yoshimoto (1993). “Kitchen”

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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

  Dream, Morning, Heart

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.41, Grove Press

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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

  Beautiful, Crazy, Flames

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• Living like that utterly convinced me of the extreme limitations of language. I was just a chlld then,so I have only an intuitive understanding of the degree to which one losses control of words once they are spoken or written. It was then that I first felt a deep curiosity about language, and understood it as a tool that encompasses both a single moment and eternity

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Single Mom, Loss, Understanding

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• To the extent that I had come to understand that despair does not necessarily result in annihilation, that one can go on as usual in spite of it, I had become hardened. Was this what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities? I didn't like it, but it made it easier to go on.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Mean, Despair, Adults

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.56, Grove Press

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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

  Hurt, Night, Sleepy

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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

  Ebb And Flow, Emotion, Uncertain

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.75, Grove Press

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• There are many days when all the awful things that happen make you sick at heart, when the path before you is so steep you can’t bear to look. Not even love can rescue a person from that. Still, enveloped in the twilight coming from the west, there she was, watering the plants with her slender, graceful hands, in the midst of a light so sweet it seemed to form a rainbow in the transparent water she poured.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Sweet, Twilight, Heart

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.42, Grove Press

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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

  Awful, Standing Out, Goodness

  Banana Yoshimoto (2011). “The Lake”, p.16, Melville House

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• No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die. Without that, I am not alive.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Alive, Want, Matter

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.59, Grove Press

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• With a cold"--she spoke evenly, lowering her eyes a little--"now is the hardest time. Maybe even harder than dying. But this is probably as bad as it can get. You might come to fear the next time you get a cold; it will be as bad as this, but if you just hold steady, it won't be. For the rest of your life. That's how it works. You could take the negative view and live in fear: Will it happen again? But it won't hurt so much if you just accept it as a part of life." With that she looked up at me, smiling.

  Banana Yoshimoto

  Hurt, Eye, Views

  Banana Yoshimoto (2006). “Kitchen”, p.139, Grove Press

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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

  Depression, Strong, Lying

  Banana Yoshimoto, Michael Emmerich (2002). “Goodbye Tsugumi”, p.163, Grove Press

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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

  Mean, Way, Knows

  Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (1979). “Three Plays”, p.59, Grove Press

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