Memoirs Of A Geisha Quotes

“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 the 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, Memoirs of a Geisha

“At that moment, beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy.”
― Arthur Golden

“I didn't say to act dead. I said act helpless.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“I knew even then that she was right. An en is a karmic bond lasting a lifetime. Nowadays many people seem to believe their lives are entirely a matter of choice; but in my day we viewed ourselves as pieces of clay that forever show the fingerprints of everyone who has touched them. Nobu's touch had made a deeper impression on me than most. No one could tell me whether he would be my ultimate destiny, but I had always sensed the en between us. Somewhere in the landscape of my life Nobu would always be present. But could it really be that of all the lessons I'd learned, the hardest one lay just ahead of me? Would I really have to take each of my hopes and put them away where no one would ever see them again, where not even I would ever see them?”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“How can we protect ourselves from a culture of manipulation, where tastes and flavors are re-created chemically in laboratories and given to us as natural food, where religion is packaged, televised and tweeted and commercials influence us to such an extent that they dictate not only what we eat, wear, read and want but what and how we dream. We need the pristine beauty of truth as revealed to us in fiction, poetry, music and the arts: we need to retrieve the third eye of imagination.”
― Azar Nafisi, The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books

“But what I could see out of the corner of my eye made me think of two lovely bundles of silk floating along a stream. In a moment they were hovering on the walkway in front of me, where they sank down and smoothed their kimono across their knees.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“We topped the ridge a few moments later, and the town of Senzuru came into view below us. The day was drab, everything in shades of gray. It was my first look at the world outside Yoroido, and I didn't think I'd missed much. I could see the thatched roofs of the town around an inlet, amid dull hills, and beyond them the metal-colored sea, broken with shards of white. Inland, the landscape might have been attractive but for the train tracks running across it like a scar.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“Now she took a close look at me for the first time, puffing on her pipe while the old woman beside her sighed. I didnt feel I could look at Mother directly, but I had the impression of smoke seeping out of her face like steam from a crack in the earth. I was so curious about her that my eyes took on a life of their own and began to dart about. The more I saw of her, the more fascinated I became. Her kimono was yellow, with willowy branches bearing lovely green and orange leaves; it was made of silk gauze as delicate as a spiders web. Her obi was every bit as astonishing to me. It was a lovely gauzy texture too, but heavier-looking, in russet and brown with gold threads woven through. The more I looked at her clothing, the less I was aware of standing there in that dirt corridor, or of wondering what had become of my sister and my mother and father and what would become of me.”
― Arthur Golden

“Happily I didn't see her after she'd died, except for her legs, which were visible from the doorway and looked like slender tree limbs wrapped in wrinkled silk.”
― Arthur Golden

“If I'd had any idea of the damage I was about to do to my future, I would have spun around on that ridge as fast as I could have, and scooted right back where I come from. But I knew nothing of what was at stake. I was just a child who thought she was embarking on a great adventure.”
― Authur Golden

“Kesedihan adalah hal yang ganjil sekali; kita jadi tak berdaya di hadapannya. Seperti jendela yang membuka atas kemauannya sendiri. Ruangan menjadi dingin, dan kita tak bisa berbuat apa pun kecuali gemetar kedinginan. Namun setiap kali terbuka kembali, lebarnya sedikit berkurang, makin lama makin sempit; dan pada suatu hari kita bertanya-tanya sendiri, apa yang terjadi dengan jendela itu.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“El aire ya no olía a cerrado. El pasado había desaparecido.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“No puedes pretender que careces de toda influencia. Tienes la obligación de utilizar toda la influencia que tengas, a no ser que quieras ir a la deriva por la vida, como un pez panza arriba llevado por la corriente.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“Sencillamente no me gusta tener delante de mí lo que no puedo alcanzar.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“Nadie es capaz de hablar honestamente de sus sufrimientos hasta que no ha dejado de sentirlos.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha