The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if itโs a kitchen, if itโs a place where they make food, itโs fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. Where tile catching the light (ting! Ting!)โ (p. 3).
Banana YoshimotoTo 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.
Banana YoshimotoI wonder what it felt to move to a country where you didn't grow up. I had thought about that often since my sister got married. Do you become a character in a story native to that land, or do you, somewhere in your heart, want to return to your homeland.
Banana YoshimotoWhen 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.
Banana YoshimotoShe 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 YoshimotoThere are many, many difficult times, god knows. If a person wants to stand on her own two feet, I recommend undertaking the care and feeding of something. It could be children, or it could be house plants, you know? By doing that you come to understand your own limitations. That's where it starts.
Banana Yoshimoto