Passion can quickly slip to jealousy, or even hatred.

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

Autobiography, if there really is such a thing, is like asking a rabbit to tell us what he looks like hopping through the grasses of the field. How would he know? If we want to hear about the field on the other hand, no one is in a better circumstance to tell us-so long as we keep in mind that we are missing all those things the rabbit was in no position to observe.

Geisha is always called beautiful even if she is not.

If a few minutes of suffering could make me so angry, what would years of it do? Even a stone can be worn down with enough rain.

I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has thought about - the tiny hole through the roof or the bottom of a box. There's no doubt it's the most versatile of the five elements. It can wash away earth; it can put out fire, it can wear a piece of metal down and sweep it away. Even wood, which is its natural complement, can't survive without being nurtured by water And yet, you haven't drawn on those strengths in living your life, have you?

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.