Sadness was a very heavy thing.

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

Can't you see? Every step I have taken, since I was that child on the bridge, has been to bring myself closer to you.

We none of us find as much kindness in this world as we should.

By the time we arrived, as evening was approaching, I felt as sore as a rock must feel when the waterfall has pounded on it all day long.

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 fell into a sound sleep and dreamed that I was at a banquet back in Gion, talking with an elderly man who was explaining to me that his wife, whom he'd cared for deeply, wasn't really dead because the pleasure of their time together lived on inside him.