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

I tried to continue, but somehow my throat made up its mind to swallow – though I can’t think what I was swallowing, unless it was a little knot of emotion I pushed back down because there was no room in my face for any more.

Flowers that grow where old ones have withered serve to remind us that death will one day come to us all.

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.

What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realized I'd never really tasted to things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd been. What life would I have? I would be like the dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give.

Nothing is as bleak as the future, except the past.

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