A seductive and evocative epic on an intimate scale, that tells the extraordinary story of a geisha girl. Summoning up more than twenty years of Japan's most dramatic history, it uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation. From a small fishing village in... read more
Sayuri is a really pretty and famous geisha from the renowned Nitta Okiya of Gion, the geisha district in Kyoto.
Her story starts as a little girl named Chiyo Sakamoto. Chiyo, along with her older sister Satsu are to be sold as servants when their father can no longer care for them due to...
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(warning: may contain spoilers)
“"We don't become geisha so our lives will be satisfying. We become geisha because we have no other choice."”Mameha
“Watch for the thing that will show itself to you. Because that thing, when you find it, will be your future.”
“Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable?”Chiyo
“I felt as a bird must feel when it has flown across the ocean and comes upon a creature that knows its nest.”
“We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.”
“Being sent out into the world isn't necessarily the same as leaving your home behind you.”
“This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like fire does, and sometimes consume us completely”Chiyo
“If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was.”Arthur Golden
“We none of us find as much kindness in this world as we should”Chairman
“Young girls hope all sorts of foolish things. Hopes are like hair ornaments: young girls wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one.”Mameha
“What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realize I'd never really tasted the things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd been. What life would I have? I would be like a dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give”Chiyo
“"...but of course we can never flee the misery that is within us"I liked this quote because it showed that we can never run away from who we truly are, and something that we gain in life, will stick forever.”Chiyo-chan
“I never seek to defeat the man I am fighting,” he explained. “I seek to defeat his confidence. A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. Two men are equals—true equals—only when they both have equal confidence.”
“I dont think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.”Arthur Golden
“From this experience, I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. What if I came to the end of my life and realized that I'd spent every day watching for a man who would never come to me? What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realize I'd never really tasted the things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd been, because I'd thought of nothing but the Chairman even while my life was drifting away from me. And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? I would be like a dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give.”Arthur Golden
“But now i know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.”Arthur Golden
“This is why dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes consume us completely.”
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