My feelings of disgust had been so loud within me, they’d nearly drowned out everything else.

Sometimes we get through adversity only by imagining what the world might be like if our dreams should ever come true.

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

If Mother and Mameha couldn't come to an agreement, I would remain a maid all my life just as surely as a turtle remains a turtle

Neither you nor I can know your destiny. You may never know it! Destiny isn't always like a party at the end of the evening. Sometimes it's nothing more than struggling through life from day to day.

I could no more have stopped myself from feeling that sadness than you could stop yourself from smelling an apple that has been cut open on the table before you.

And when I raised myself to look at the man who'd spoken, I had a feeling of leaving my misery behind me there on the stone wall.