Banana Yoshimoto

“I had the impression that her place was near mine, but even by bus it took about twenty minutes. She lived alone in an apartment house, square and white like a block of tofu, on the edge of town.”

“A particular variety of loneliness, like peering deep into the darkness. It's only natural, when two separate universes touch.”

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

“My fury was lofty, pure, cool. It was an emotion that none of these people, struggling so hard to impose a shape on life when life has no shape, could begin to understand.”

“When people start getting depressed there’s just no end to it—things just seem to get worse and worse.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Nakajima’s past would always be there, so the foundation could crumble at any moment. That’s what happens, I realized, when people destroy other people.”

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

“If a person hasn't ever experienced true despair, she grows old never knowing how to evaluate where she is in life; never understanding what joy really is.”

“I can't imagine a life without a story.”

“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.”