Geisha Quotes

• She paints her face to hide her face. Her eyes are deep water. It is not for Geisha to want. It is not for geisha to feel. Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances, she sings. She entertains you, whatever you want. The rest is shadows, the rest is secret.

  Arthur Golden

  Eye, Artist, Deep Water

  "Memoirs of a Geisha". www.imdb.com. 2005.

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• We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.

  Arthur Golden

  Inspirational, Life, One Direction

  "Memoirs of a Geisha". Book by Arthur Golden, 1997.

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• At that moment, beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy.

  Arthur Golden

  Kind, Painful, Melancholy

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.187, Random House

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• We don't become geisha because we want our lives to be happy; we become geisha because we have no choice.

  Arthur Golden

  Choices, Want, Our Lives

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.409, Random House

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• Adversity is like a strong wind. I don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are.

  Arthur Golden

  Inspirational, Strength, Success

  "Memoirs of a Geisha". Book by Arthur Golden, September 27, 1997.

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• A geisha has studied a man's moods and his seasons. She fusses and he blooms.

  Arthur Golden

  Men, Mood, Seasons

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• I don't know when we'll see each other again or what the world will be like when we do. We may both have seen many horrible things. But I will think of you every time I need to be reminded that there is beauty and goodness in the world.

  Arthur Golden

  Life, Saying Goodbye, Thinking

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• The first rule that a geisha is taught, at the age of nine, is to be charming to other women...Every girl in the world should have geisha training.

  Diana Vreeland

  Girl, Fashion, Should Have

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• I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.

  Arthur Golden

  Pain, Thinking, Speak

  "Memoirs of a Geisha". Book by Arthur Golden, 1997.

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• Geisha because when I was living in Japan, I met a fellow whose mother was a geisha, and I thought that was kind of fascinating and ended up reading about the subject just about the same time I was getting interested in writing fiction.

  Arthur Golden

  Mother, Reading, Writing

  "A talk with Arthur Golden". Interview with Miles O'Brien, www.cnn.com. March 23, 1999.

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• A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course of victory.

  Arthur Golden

  Inspirational, Success, Fear

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• I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school, and afterward went to work in Tokyo, where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha. He and I never discussed his parentage, which was an open secret, but it fascinated me.

  Arthur Golden

  Mother, Father, School

  Random House Author Q&A. From the Trade Paperback edition, www.randomhouse.com.

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• Geisha is always called beautiful even if she is not.

  Arthur Golden

  Beautiful, Ifs

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• He was like a song I'd heard once in fragments but had been singing in my mind ever since.

  Arthur Golden

  Song, Mind, Singing

  "Memoirs of a Geisha". Book by Arthur Golden, 1997.

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• I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has thought about - the tiny hole through the roof or the bottom of a box. There's no doubt it's the most versatile of the five elements. It can wash away earth; it can put out fire, it can wear a piece of metal down and sweep it away. Even wood, which is its natural complement, can't survive without being nurtured by water And yet, you haven't drawn on those strengths in living your life, have you?

  Arthur Golden

  Fire, Water, Personality

  "Memoirs Of A Geisha". Book by Arthur Golden, September 27, 1997.

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• The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.

  Arthur Golden

  Hope, Heart, One Day

  "Memoirs of a Geisha". www.imdb.com. December 6, 2005.

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• I will think of you every time I need to be reminded that there is beauty and goodness in the world.

  Arthur Golden

  Thinking, Needs, World

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• If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was.

  Arthur Golden

  Thinking, World, Ifs

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• There's nothing in Chinese culture that is an equivalent of the geisha. It's so different, so special to Japan.

  Zhang Ziyi

  Japan, Chinese, Special

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• I never seek to defeat the man I am fighting, " he explained. "I seek to defeat his confidence. A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. Two men are equals - true equals - only when they both have equal confidence.

  Arthur Golden

  Confidence, Fighting, Men

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• For myself I don't like the geisha look. It's like a mask.

  Zhang Ziyi

  Looks, Mask

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• Can't you see? Every step I have taken, since I was that child on the bridge, has been to bring myself closer to you.

  Arthur Golden

  Children, Taken, Bridges

  "Memoirs of a Geisha". www.imdb.com. December 6, 2005.

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• A tree may look as beautiful as ever; but when you notice the insects infesting it, and the tips of the branches that are brown from disease, even the trunk seems to lose some of its magnificence.

  Arthur Golden

  Beautiful, Tree, Looks

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• It was what we Japanese called the onion life, peeling away a layer at a time and crying all the while.

  Arthur Golden

  Onions, Layers, Cry

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• Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.

  Arthur Golden

  Grief, Grieving, One Day

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.255, Random House

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