Memoirs of a Geisha

by Arthur Golden

All the stories about invading American soldiers raping and killing us had turned out to be wrong; and in fact, we gradually came to realize that the Americans on the whole were remarkably kind.

During the final years of the war, I’d learned to stop wondering what was meant to be and what wasn’t.

but I’d never quite learned to accept the disappointment of our friendship running dry.

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

They played the same role straw plays in a packing crate.

until I began to feel like an old lady talking to her two dogs.

“Sayuri, I am the one who asked Mameha to take you under her care. I told her about a beautiful young girl I’d met, with startling gray eyes, and asked that she help you if she ever came upon you in Gion. I said I would cover her expenses if necessary.

Mind blown

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

Very true

but he certainly wasn’t going to marry me; he was already married.

Gah

but for me, I fell toward the Chairman just as a stone must fall toward the earth. When I cut my lip and met Mr. Tanaka, when my mother died and I was cruelly sold, it was all like a stream that falls over rocky cliffs before it can reach the ocean. Even now that he is gone I have him still, in the richness of my memories. I’ve lived my life again just telling it to you.

But now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean.