My mother once told me I was like water. Water can carve its way even through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path.

She paints her face to hide her face. Her eyes are deep water. It is not for Geisha to want. It is not for geisha to feel. Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances, she sings. She entertains you, whatever you want. The rest is shadows, the rest is secret.

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.

His face was very heavily creased, and into each crease he had tucked some worry or other, so that it wasn't really his face any longer, but more like a tree that had nests of birds in all of the branches. He had to struggle constantly to manage it and always looked worn out from the effort.

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.

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

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.