Memoirs of a Geisha

by Arthur Golden

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?

If you’ve ever seen Uchida Kosaburo’s famous ink painting of the young woman in a kimono standing in a rapturous state and with her eyes aglow . . . well, from the very beginning he insisted the idea came from what he saw that afternoon. I’ve never really believed him. I can’t imagine such a beautiful painting could really be based on just a girl staring foolishly at her hands in the sunset.

Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it.

Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one.”

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

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

But 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.