Memories Of A Geisha Quotes

• 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.

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  88 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  50 Copy quote

• We none of us find as much kindness in this world as we should.

  Arthur Golden

  Kindness, World, Should

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• We must use whatever methods we can to understand the movement of the universe around us and time our actions so that we are not fighting the currents, but moving with them.

  Arthur Golden

  Moving, Fighting, Use

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.127, Random House

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I went back to those graves not long afterward and found as I stood there that sadness was a very heavy thing. My body weighed twice what it had only a moment earlier, as if those graves were pulling me down toward them.

  Arthur Golden

  Grief, Sadness, Grieving

  6 Copy quote

• 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, Geisha

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

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Well, a peach has a lovely taste and so does a mushroom, but you can't put the two together.

  Arthur Golden

  Mushrooms, Two, Lovely

  7 Copy quote

• Even stone can be worn down with enough rain.

  Arthur Golden

  Rain, Stones, Enough

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.94, Random House

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of course, a sign doesn't mean anything unless you know how to interpret it.

  Arthur Golden

  Mean, Courses, Know How

  7 Copy quote

• I don't like things held up before me that I cannot have.

  Arthur Golden

  Geisha

  6 Copy quote

• From this experience, I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. What if I came to the end of my life and realized that I'd spent every day watching for a man who would never come to me? What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realize I'd never really tasted the things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd been, because I'd thought of nothing but the Chairman even while my life was drifting away from me. And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? I would be like a dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give.

  Arthur Golden

  Men, Giving, Dancer

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  28 Copy quote

• If a few minutes of suffering could make me so angry, what would years of it do? Even a stone can be worn down with enough rain.

  Arthur Golden

  Rain, Years, Suffering

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.94, Random House

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.

  Arthur Golden

  Ocean, Struggle, Our World

  8 Copy quote

• Sometimes we get through adversity only by imagining what the world might be like if our dreams should ever come true.

  Arthur Golden

  Dream, Adversity, World

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.370, Random House

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• His face was very heavily creased, and into each crease he had tucked some worry or other, so that it wasn't really his face any longer, but more like a tree that had nests of birds in all of the branches. He had to struggle constantly to manage it and always looked worn out from the effort.

  Arthur Golden

  Struggle, Worry, Effort

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.9, Random House

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Arthur Golden

  Inspirational, Success, Fear

  21 Copy quote

• Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable?

  Arthur Golden

  Storm, Moments, Barren

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.13, Random House

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon.

  Arthur Golden

  Beautiful, Men, Long

  Arthur Golden (2008). “Memoirs Of A Geisha”, p.225, Random House

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• How many times already had I encountered the painful lesson that although we may wish for the barb to be pulled from our flesh, it leaves a welt that doesn't heal?

  Arthur Golden

  Wish, Lessons, May

  6 Copy quote