Banana Yoshimoto

“El hambre nocturna es un espíritu maligno que actúa independientemente de la personalidad de cada uno.”

“Die wirklich schönen Erinnerungen bleiben lebendig und haben einen unauslöschlichen Glanz. Sie pulsieren schmerzlich im Fluss der Zeit.”

“Maria, báu vật của ông!Tạm biệt cháu.Hãy yêu quý bà, bố và mẹ, hãy trở thành một cô gái tuyệt vời để không xấu hổ với cái tên Đức Mẹ.Ryuzo”

“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.”

“I love feeling the rhythm of other people's lives. It's like traveling.”

“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.”

“And when something awful happens, the goodness stands out even more ...”

“I felt how important the simplest things were, like feeling proud, finding something funny, stretching yourself, retreating into yourself.”

“If you don’t say what you’re thinking, you end up lying when you really need to speak up.”

“Diventerò grande, accadranno tante cose e toccherò il fondo molte volte. Soffrirò molte volte e molte volte mi rimetterò in piedi. Non mi lascerò sconfiggere.”

“Quanti anni avevo quand'ho capito che su quel sentiero buio e solitario l'unica luce possibile era quella che io stessa avrei emanato?”

“It was so gorgeous it almost felt like sadness.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“When things get really bad, you take comfort in the placeness of a place.”

“it'll be this kind of deep blue”she said. “The kind of color that somehow sucks your eyes and your ears and all your words —the color of a completely closed-in night”

“It didn't matter whether he was nearby or far away. His image would drift up into your mind just when you least expected it, shocking you, making your chest pound. Making your heart ache.”

“Her eyes were those of someone who's just fallen in love, someone who sees nothing but her lover, someone who has no fear of anything. The eyes of someone who believes that every dream will come true, that reality will move if you just give it a push.”

“I guess my mom was all he had-the one flower that smelled like freedom”

“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.”

“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”

“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?”

“I got up and sprinted into the ocean, chasing my father. I'm in love with the moment when the water switches from being so cold you want to leap up into the air to something that feels just right against your skin.”

“That night, having wriggled down into my futon all alone, I found myself in the grips of a wrenching sadness. I was only a child, but I knew the feeling that came when you parted with something, and I felt that pain. I lay gazing up at the ceiling , feeling the sleek stiffness of the well-starched sheets against my skin. My distress was a seed that would grow into an understanding of what it meant to say goodbye. In contrast to the heavy ache I would come to know later on in life, this was tiny and fresh – a green bud of pain with a bright halo of light rimming its edges.”

“The night glittered brilliantly then.”

“He doesn't look like a gangster, but then he's not the office worker type, either...some kind of entrepreneur maybe, or, - wait, I've got it! He looks like he writes manga! Either that or a chiropractor, I guess.”

“You have the nicest window, you know? None of the others can even compete. It´s not flashy like the others, or bleary – your window gives of this nice, quiet light.”

“But I have my life, I’m living it. It’s twisted, exhausting, uncertain, and full of guilt, but nonetheless, there’s something there.”

“Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”

“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.”

“Kalau manusia sama sekali tidak pernah merasa putus asa, kita tidak akan tahu bagian mana dari diri kita yang tak sanggup kita singkirkan. Lalu kita akan tumbuh dewasa tanpa benar-benar mengerti apa saja yang bisa membuat kita gembira. Aku bahagia karena bisa menderita", Eriko (Kitchen)”

“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.”

“When was it I realized that, on this truly dark and solitary path we all walk, the only way we can light is our own? Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely.Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I should have told her at the time. I could have taken a deep breath, looked away, and forced myself to say it.”

“Here in this ocean, in the midst of all this water, with the red flags on those distant buoys flapping in the sea breeze, I find myself unable to treat our house in Tokyo as anything but a dream. ”

“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.”

“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. ”

“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.”

“Truly happy memories always live on, shining. Over time, one by one, they come back to life.”

“Begitulah, tapi kalau manusia sama sekali tidak pernah merasa putus asa, kita tidak akan tahu bagian mana dari diri kita yang tidak sanggup kita singkirkan. Lalu kita akan tumbuh dewasa tanpa benar-benar mengerti apa saja yang bisa membuat kita gembira. Aku bahagia karena bisa menderita”

“Once you've recognized your own limits, you've raised yourself to a higher level of being, since you're closer to the real you...”

“People who are going to get along really well know it almost as soon as they meet. You spend a little while talking and everyone starts to feel this conviction, you're all equally sure that you're at the beginning of something good. That's how it is when you meet people you're going to be with for a long time.”

“No matter where you are, you're always a bit on your own, always an outsider.”

“This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the next-and I didn’t want to forget a single one.”

“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.”