Adversity is like a strong wind. I don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are. Arthur Golden More Quotes by Arthur Golden More Quotes From Arthur Golden I began to feel that all the people I'd ever known who had died or left me had not in fact gone away, but continued to live on inside me just as this man's wife lived on inside him. Arthur Golden gone-away men people Friendship is a precious thing, Sayuri. One mustn't throw it away. Arthur Golden precious-things Nothing is as bleak as the future, except the past. Arthur Golden bleak past Flowers that grow where old ones have withered serve to remind us that death will one day come to us all. Arthur Golden grows one-day flower Couldn't the wrong sort of living turn anyone mean? I remembered very well that one day back in Yoroido, a boy pushed me into a thorn bush near the pond. By the time I clawed my way out I was mad enough to bite through wood. If a few minutes of suffering could make me so angry, what would years of it do? Even stone can be worn down with enough rain. Arthur Golden rain boys mean A geisha has studied a man's moods and his seasons. She fusses and he blooms. Arthur Golden geisha mood men 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. Arthur Golden deep-water eye artist We human beings have a remarkable way of growing accustomed to things. Arthur Golden growing remarkable way It's your duty to use what influence you have, unless you want to drift through life like a fish belly-up on the stream" "I wish I could believe that life really is something more than a stream that carries us along, belly-up" "Alright, if it's a stream, you're still free to be in this part of it or that part, aren't you? The water will divide again and again. If you bump, and tussle, and fight, and make use of whatever advantages you might have-" "Oh, that's fine, I'm sure, when you have advantages." "You'd find them everywhere, if you ever bothered to look! Arthur Golden fighting water believe A woman who acts like a fool is a fool. Arthur Golden fool We all know that a winter scene, though it may be covered over one day, with even the trees dressed in shawls of snow, will be unrecognizable the following spring. Yet I never imagined such a thing could occur within our very selves. Arthur Golden self winter spring 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. Arthur Golden light eye darkness 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. Arthur Golden wall leaving men At that moment, beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy. Arthur Golden melancholy painful kind The corridor couldn't have smelled more strongly of fish guts if we had actually been inside a fish. Arthur Golden guts fishes ifs As an American man of the 1990s writing about a Japanese woman of the 1930s, I needed to cross three cultural divides - man to woman, American to Japanese, and present to past. Arthur Golden writing men past A memoir provides a record not so much of the memoirist as of the memoirist's world. Arthur Golden memoir records world Geisha is always called beautiful even if she is not. Arthur Golden geisha ifs beautiful 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. Arthur Golden swallowing mind thinking My feelings of disgust had been so loud within me, they’d nearly drowned out everything else. Arthur Golden disgusting loud feelings
