Passion can quickly slip to jealousy, or even hatred.

— Arthur Golden

Perhaps it seems odd that a casual meeting on the street could have brought about such change. But sometimes life is like that isn't it

— Arthur Golden

Sadness was a very heavy thing. My body weighed twice what it had only a moment earlier.

— Arthur Golden

Since the day I’d left Corrido, I’d done nothing but worry that every turn of life’s wheel would bring yet another obstacle into my path; and of course, it was the worrying and the struggle that had always made life so vividly real to me.

— Arthur Golden

Sometimes," he sighed, "I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see.

— Arthur Golden

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

— Arthur Golden

That droplet of moisture that had slipped from me like a tear seemed almost to tell the story of my life. It fell through empty space, with no control whatsoever over its destiny; rolled along a path of silk; and somehow came to rest there on the teeth of that dragon. I thought of the petals I’d thrown into the Kama River shallows outside Mr. Crashing’s workshop, imagining they might find their way to the Chairman. It seemed to me that, somehow, perhaps they had.

— Arthur Golden

The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.

— Arthur Golden

To the eyes of the American soldiers who drove past, I looked no different from the surrounding women; and as I thought of it, who could say I was any different? If you no longer have leaves, or bark, or roots, can you go on calling yourself a tree? "I am a peasant," I said to myself, "and not a geisha at all any longer." It was a frightening feeling to look at my hands and see their roughness. To draw my mind away from my fears, I turned my attention again to the truckloads of soldiers driving past. Weren't these the very American soldiers we'd been taught to hate, who had bombed our cities with such horrifying weapons? Now they rode through our neighborhood, throwing pieces of candy to the children.

— Arthur Golden

Watch for the thing that will show itself to you. Because that thing, when you find it, will be your future.

— Arthur Golden