Banana Yoshimoto

“Non ero triste per qualcosa in particolare, piangevo per tante cose insieme.”

“Anche se sono stata allevata con amore, mi sono sempre sentita sola. Un giorno o l'altro tutti si perderanno nelle tenebre del tempo e scompariranno.”

“Stavo toccando con mano e vedendo con i miei occhi, per la prima volta, quanto fosse immenso il mondo e profondo l'oscurità e l'infinito fascino e solitudine di tutto ciò.”

“No recuerdo si esto me había ocurrido con anterioridad, pero cuando me enfrenté a las tinieblas de mi corazón, cuando me sentí herida en lo más hondo y me rompí en pedazos, exhausta, de improviso emergió de mi una fuerza inexplicable".”

“Alguna vez, sin falta, todos iremos dispersándonos en la oscuridad del tiempo y desapareceremos...”

“Everything in my life revolves around people playing at being something.”

“This is what it means to be loved... when someone wants to touch you, to be tender...”

“Die Zeit ist unaufhaltsam und fließt immer weiter. Das tut sie nicht nur, damit man ihr nachtrauert, sondern damit man einen schönen Augenblick nach dem anderen erhaschen kann.”

“Als junges Mädchen hatte ich meine eigene Theorie, was die Liebe betraf. Alles hing davon ab, ob ich bereit war, einem Menschen zu verzeihen, was er in seiner Phantasie mit mir anstellte. Auch die schmutzigsten Phantasien. Wenn nicht, blieb es bei einer normalen Freundschaft, egal, wie gut wir uns verstanden.”

“There was a real sense of comfort but at the same time it felt oddly tense. The feeling that every little things we said, these conversations, at any moment, they could stop being possible, and so they were precious, it was that feeling, and the sense of the miracle of this shared moment, here and now. Why were we so far apart, even when we are together? It was anice loneliness, like th sensation of washing your face with cold water.”

“Từ bao giờ nhỉ, mỗi khi chỉ có một mình, tôi lại thấy buồn ngủ đến nhường này?Cơn buồn ngủ ập đến như nước triều dâng, không thể nào cưỡng lại được. Những giấc ngủ ấy lắng sâu vô tận, đến nỗi tiếng chuông điện thoại và cả tiếng xe cộ qua lại ngoài đường không cách gì lọt vào tai tôi được. Không còn đau đớn, cũng không còn muộn phiền, chỉ còn lại thế giới chìm đắm của giấc ngủ mà thôi.Lúc thức giấc tôi thấy hơi đơn độc, nhưng chỉ trong thoáng chốc. Nhìn ra bầu trời u ám, tôi mới biết mình đã ngủ khá lâu, để rồi lại vẩn vơ: “Mình đâu có định ngủ, vậy mà… tiêu tốn vô ích mất cả một ngày trời rồi…” Giữa tâm trạng bứt rứt như thể một nỗi ê chề, tôi bất chợt rùng mình.Không biết tự bao giờ, tôi cứ để mặc cho mình chìm vào những giấc ngủ ấy. Và cũng không biết tự bao giờ, tôi không còn cố chống lại nó nữa… Cái thời tôi lúc nào cũng tràn đầy khí thế, mắt luôn luôn tỉnh táo là hồi nào nhỉ? Thời đó đã xa lắm, như thể từ thời tiền sử, cái thời xa lắc mà người ta chỉ có thể hình dung ra được với một màn hình phẳng choán ngợp thứ sắc màu hoang sơ, sống động của dương xỉ và khủng long.”

“Los grandes hombres, sólo con existir, emiten una luz que ilumina a quienes están a su alrededor, y cuando esta luz se apaga proyecta una sombra pesada, irremediablemente.”

“Hitoshi:Não posso mais ficar aqui. A cada momento eu sigo em frente. É impossível deter o fluxo do tempo, não tenho escolha. Eu vou.Uma caravana pára e outra parte. Ainda há pessoas que tenho que conhecer, outras que jamais voltarei a encontrar. Pessoas que passam por mim sem que eu o perceba, pessoas com quem cruzo apenas. Mas á medida que as cumprimento, tenho a sensação de que ficam mais transparentes. Devo viver com os olhos voltados para a corrente do rio.Peço-lhe, do coração, que guarde para sempre junto de você a imagem da garota que eu fui.Obrigada por te-se despedido de mim acenando.Por ter-se despedido acenando muitas, muitas vezes.”

“Bầu trời xanh, bàn tay có năm ngón, ta có cha, có mẹ, ta chào hỏi một người lạ gặp trên đường... Tất cả giống như ta đang uống một dòng nước mát. Ta không thể sống tiếp được nếu hàng ngày không uống dòng nước đó... nếu có tất cả những thứ đó mà không uống, ta sẽ chết vì khát.”

“We've done so much together, wherever I go and whatever I see, I think of you. Newborn babies; the pattern on the plate that you can see under a paper-thin slice of sashimi; fireworks in August. The moon hidden behind the clouds over the ocean at night. When I'm sitting down someplace, inadvertently stepping on someone's toes, and have to apologize. And when someone picks up something I've dropped, and I thank him. When I see an elderly man tottering along,and wonder how much longer he has to live. Dogs and cats peeking out from alleyways. A beautiful view from a tall building. The warm blast of air you feel when you go down into a subway station. The phone ringing in the middle of the night. Even when I have crushes on other men, I always see you in the curve of their eyebrows.""Yet I must remain calm, detached. It's a little like trying to ignore a plate of delicious food when you're really hungry. When it beckons you, there's no problem with enjoying the aroma and appreciating it with your eyes, but at some point you have to separate yourself and realize, like a professional waiter does, that it's not your own. It's my job to ignore those plates heaped with delicious morsels and just carry them where they need to go.”

“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.”

“The sky was incredibly far away, and beautiful enough to make a person wonder why our hearts are never so free.”

“La felicidad es vivir sintiendo, lo menos posible, que el hombre, en realidad, está solo.”

“I had been walking in silence for so long,I had almost forgotten what my own voice sounded like.My knees were tired;my toes were beginning to ache.”

“No, I just wanted to recapture the incredibly vivid love we'd had at first- the love I'd shared with the tall man standing next to me, with the man I adored.”

“What was important wasn't the fireworks, it was that we were together this evening, together in this place, looking up into the sky at the same time.”

“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.”

“Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.”

“Hitoshi:I'll never be able to be here again. As the minutes slide by, I move on. The flow of time is something I cannot stop. I haven't a choice. I go. One caravan has stopped, another starts up. There are people I've yet to meet, others I'll never see again. People who are gone before you know it, people who are just passing through. Even as we exchange hellos, they seem to grow transparent. I must keep living with the flowing river before my eyes. I earnestly pray that a trace of my girl-child self will always be with you.For waving good-bye, I thank you.”

“Over and over, we begin again.”

“We live like the lowliest worms. Always defeated - defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love is dying. Still, to cease living is unacceptable.”

“May the memory of this moment, here, the glowing impression of the two of us facing each other in this warm, bright place drinking lovely hot tea, help save him, even a little bit.”

“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.”

“I got dressed to begin another day. Over and over, we begin again. (Kitchen, 103)”

“I really believe that no matter how old people get, they tend to change in certain ways depending on how people treat them - they change their colors.”

“it was clear that the best thing to do was to adopt a sort of muddled cheerfulness”

“I guess you just lacked the courage, the guts to strike out on your own. And so when it all came to an end, you were still living that way, a life you never meant to be anything more than a stopgap, filling in for the real thing.”

“You know, Chihiro, darling- all it takes is one little wrong step and you end up feeling frustrated your whole life, like me.”

“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.”

“Sucede que el corazón acaba velando en la distancia la belleza de las cosas ya vistas, desde las más intensamente vividas a las más pálidas; todo quedaba completamente envuelto en el corazón y ahora se sumergía en el paisaje que avanzaba hacia nosotros moviéndose velozmente”

“The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it’s a kitchen, if it’s a place where they make food, it’s fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. Where tile catching the light (ting! Ting!)”

“Nothing exists in this world but me and my bed…” (p. 141).”

“With Lizard, I felt overwhelmed by the desire to touch her skin, to kiss her, hold her, make love to her,no matter how it happened, I just had to have her, Lizard and no one else. Right then and there. Tears came to my eyes, I wanted her so much.”

“… I was thinking, listlessly, is this what it means to be happy? But now I feel it in my gut. 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. Still, to cease living is unacceptable.”

“Son muchos los que ni siquiera hacen el esfuerzo de imaginar el tesoro que duerme en el corazón de los demás.”

“La felicidad llega sin llamar a la puerta, al margen de las situaciones y circunstancias que la rodean a una, con una independencia casi cruel. No importa en qué situación te halles o con quién estés.”

“En este mundo cada uno tiene su particular abismo. Mis desgracias o las tuyas son nimias, en el mundo hay cosas mucho peores, cosas que, si nos ocurrieran a nosotros, nos destrozarían y nos matarían al instante. Porque nosotros gozamos de una situación bastante feliz y aventajada. Y no hay que avergonzarse de ello”

“Jeder Mensch hat dieses kleine schwache Etwas, das zitternd am Boden seines Herzens liegt, und bisweilen ist es sicher besser, es hochzunehmen, sich darum zu kümmern und den Tränen freien Lauf zu lassen.”

“La sensación de no ver el final del túnel todavía no se había disipado. En esos días, yo tenía que contentarme con el presente, porque temía que, si apartaba la mirada de él, la pena me embargaría y, sin embargo, precisamente eso contribuía a ese extraño estado de felicidad”

“Creo que los postres son como sueños que hacen felices a las personas”

“Quando lo stesso tema si presenta per ben due volte in poco tempo, bisogna prestarvi attenzione.”

“Recognizing how totally ignorant you are is the only honest way to deal with people who've been through something traumatic.”

“E’ strana la notte: per quelli che si addormentano subito dura solo un attimo, mentre per chi la passa completamente in bianco, diventa così lunga che è come vivere una vita supplementare e sembra quasi un privilegio…”

“As long as it had remained a mystery, I could have dealt with it--no matter how enormous a mystery it became. Now that matters had gotten more specific, my imagination began supplying smells and textures.”

“Eriko raised me that way," he said, laughing. "If I didn't open the door for her, she'd get mad and refuse to get in the car.""Even though she was a man!" I said, laughing."Right, right, even though she was a man.”