Finishing Touch on Dumped Furnitures, a photo by Ikhlasul Amal on Flickr.
'Stock your mind, stock your mind.
It is your house and treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it.
If you won the Irish Sweepstakes and bought a house that needed furniture would you fill it with bits and pieces of rubbish?
Your mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from the cinemas it will rot in your head.
You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.'
Put Your Best Foot Forward, a photo by dawn_perry on Flickr.
'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 houseplants,
you know? By doing that you come to understand your own limitations.
That's where it starts.' p. 41
'...
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.' p. 41
'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.'
From Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Translated by Megan Backus, 1993
Faber and Faber, London
http://www.yoshimotobanana.com
http://yoshibanana.blogspot.com.au/
