Quotes from book
Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Golden

Memoirs of a Geisha is a historical fiction novel by American author Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel, told in first person perspective, tells the story of a fictional geisha working in Kyoto, Japan, before, during and after World War II and ends with her being relocated to New York City.

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

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“At the temple there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

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

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“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 book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“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 book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“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 book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“Sometimes," he sighed, "I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

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

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“Watch for the thing that will show itself to you. Because that thing, when you find it, will be your future.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“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 book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“And then I became aware of all the magnificent silk wrapped around my body, and had the feeling I might drown in beauty. At that moment, beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“A woman who acts like a fool is a fool.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“If you have experienced an evening more exciting than any in your life, you're sad to see it end; and yet you still feel grateful that it happened.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“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 book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

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

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“When we fight upstream against a rocky undercurrent, every foothold takes on a kind of urgency.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“All at once I felt so vain, like a girl posturing for the crowds as she walks along, only to discover the street is empty.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“Occasionally in life we come upon things we can't understand, because we have never seen anything similar.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“Nothing in life is ever as simple as we imagine.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

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