I cannot tell you what it is that guides us in this life; but for me, I fell toward the Chairman just as a stone must fall toward the earth. When I cut my lip and met Mr. Tanaka, when my mother died and I was cruelly sold, it was all like a stream that falls over rocky cliffs before it can reach the ocean. Even now that he is gone I have him still, in the richness of my memories.

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.

In the instant before the door opened, I could almost sense my life expanding just like a river whose waters have begun to swell; for I had never before taken such a drastic step to change the course of my own future. I was like a child tiptoeing along a precipice overlooking the sea. And yet somehow I hadn't imagined a great wave might come and strike me there, and wash everything away.

Watch for the thing that will show itself to you. Because that thing, when you find it, will be your future.

A mouse who wishes to fool the cat doesn't simply scamper out of its hole whenever it feels the slightest urge.

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.

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