We must use whatever methods we can to understand the movement of the universe around us and time our actions so that we are not fighting the currents, but moving with them.

It was what we Japanese called the onion life, peeling away a layer at a time and crying all the while.

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

Well, a peach has a lovely taste and so does a mushroom, but you can't put the two together.

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

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

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.