Jo > Jo's Quotes

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

“No matter where you are, you're always a bit on your own, always an outsider.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Goodbye Tsugumi

“People aren't overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen

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

“Everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, NP

“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, Goodbye Tsugumi

“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.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Goodbye Tsugumi

“It was so gorgeous it almost felt like sadness.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, The Lake

“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, Goodbye Tsugumi

“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.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Asleep

“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, The Lake

“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, Hardboiled & Hard Luck

“Your love is different from mine. What I mean is, when you close your eyes, for that moment, the center of the universe comes to reside within you. And you become a small figure within that vastness, which spreads without limit behind you, and continues to expand at tremendous speed, to engulf all of my past, even before I was born, and every word I've ever written, and each view I've seen, and all the constellations, and the darkness of outer space that surrounds the small blue ball that is earth. Then, when you open your eyes, all that disappears.
I anticipate the next time you are troubled and must close your eyes again.
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.


Oddly, at that moment, she looked over at me and smiled. As if in response to what I'd been thinking, she said, "That was beautiful. I'll never forget it.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Lizard

“No one can survive childhood without being wounded. Everyone remembers at least one time when their parents rejected them, pushed them away, even though they may have still been in the womb, blind, and unable to speak. That's why, as adults, we all look for someone to become our parents again, and for someone to look after us in times of need. And we search for a person to live with who can provide the companionship we so desperately want.”
― banana yoshimoto

“I love feeling the rhythm of other people's lives. It's like traveling.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, The Lake

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

“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, The Lake

“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.”
― Banana Yoshimoto

“Gli esseri umani accolgono ogni cambiamento del proprio animo in una confusione di cose buone e cattive, e da soli portano quel peso per tutta la vita.
Pregando, sempre da soli, di essere il più gentile possibile con le persone a cui vogliono bene e a cui sono vicini.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Goodbye Tsugumi

“This is what it means to be loved... when someone wants to touch you, to be tender...”
― Banana Yoshimoto, The Lake

“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.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Asleep

“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

“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.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Hardboiled & Hard Luck

“Over and over, we begin again.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen

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

“Good tea is eloquent enough, it turns out, to change a person's mind.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, The Lake

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

“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.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen

“So, have you been enjoying yourself these days, Kazami?'
I'm having lots of fun.'
It was true. That made the sense of regret even keener, that this time in my life would soon be a thing of the past. I felt as if I could understand a little of what my mother had been through, and the feelings she may have had at different times. I wasn't a child anymore, and this made me feel awfully lonesome, and utterly alone.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, N.P

“You have to take responsibility for listening.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, The Lake