Banana Yoshimoto

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.

all it takes is one little wrong step and you end up feeling frustrated your whole life

If you’re always angry, always yelling at people, ultimately that just means you depend on them

love doesn't ever have to stop. It's like the national water system, I thought. No matter how long you leave the faucets running, you can be sure the supply won't give out.

It’s a marvelous thing, the ocean. For some reason when two people sit together looking out at it, they stop caring whether they talk or stay silent. You never get tired of watching it.

I think I’m good at running away from the pain that comes with these ordinary emotions

I had been protected, wrapped up in something like a blanket that had been stitched together from all kinds of different things. But people never notice that warmth until after they’ve emerged. You don’t even notice that you’ve been inside until it’s too late for you ever to go back

Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we’ve ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves.

when I think about all the different shades of loneliness I got to know during those years

I catch a faint whiff of some unknown scent. Perhaps it’s the scent of saying goodbye, so faint it seems slightly sweet.