250 Quotes by Arthur Golden

Every time I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass of a shop, I felt I was someone to be taken seriously; not a girl anymore, but a young woman.

If he couldn’t forgive you for what you’d done, it was clear to me he was never truly your destiny.

If those sorts of moments would be the only pleasure life offered me, I’d be better off shutting out that one brilliant source of light to let my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness.

Every step I have taken has been to bring myself closer to you.

I’m sure there are a great many things I don’t know about these women in their splendid dresses, but I often have the feeling that without their wealthy husbands or boyfriends, many of them would be struggling to get by and might not bare the same proud opinions of themselves. And of course, the same thing is true for a first-class Geisha.

He smelled like the sea even after he had bathed. When he wasn’t fishing, he sat on the floor in our dark front room mending a fishing net. And if a fishing net had been a sleeping creature, he wouldn’t even have awakened it, at the speed he worked. He did everything this slowly.

Remember, Chiyo, geisha are not courtesans. And we are not wives. We sell our skills, not our bodies. We create another secret world, a place only of beauty. The very word “geisha” means artist and to be a geisha is to be judged as a moving work of art.

Because I’d lived through adversity once before, what I learned about myself was like a reminder of something I’d once known but had nearly forgotten-namely, that beneath the elegant clothing, and the accomplished dancing, and the clever conversation, my life had no complexity at all, but was as simple as a stone falling toward the ground. My whole purpose in everything during the past ten years had been to win the affections of the Chairman.

Only when she sits before her mirror to apply her makeup with care does she become a geisha. And I don’t mean that this is when she begins to look like one. This is when she begins to think like one too.