Quotes from book

Memoirs of a Geisha

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

“We human beings have a remarkable way of growing accustomed to things.”

“If you keep your destiny in mind, every moment in life becomes an opportunity for moving closer to it.”

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

“A wounded tiger is a dangerous beast.”

“We can never flee the misery that is within us.”

“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.”

“I was thanking him for… well, for something I'm not sure I can explain even now. For showing me that something besides cruelty could be found in the world, I suppose.”

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

“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.”

“Nothing like work for getting over a disappointment.”

“I dont think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.”

“When a man takes a mistress, he doesn't turn around and divorce his wife.”

“Neither you nor I can know your destiny. You may never know it! Destiny isn't always like a party at the end of the evening. Sometimes it's nothing more than struggling through life from day to day.”

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

“I didn't say to act dead. I said act helpless.”

“Perhaps it seems odd that a casual meeting on the street could have brought about such change. But sometimes life is like that isn't it”

“Every man has his destiny. But who needs to go to a fortune-teller to find it? Do I go to a chef to find out if I'm hungry?”

“I've lived my life again just telling it to you.”