Nothing Is As Bleak As The Future,

Geisha Because When I Was Living In Japan, I Met A Fellow Whose Mother Was A Geisha, And I Thought That Was Kind Of Fascinating And Ended Up Reading About The Subject Just About The Same Time I Was Getting Interested In Writing Fiction.

We Don't Become Geisha Because We Want Our Lives To Be Happy; We Become Geisha Because We Have No Choice.

Hopes Are Like Hair Ornaments. Girls Want To Wear Too Many Of Them. When They Become Old Women They Look Silly Wearing Even One.

At That Moment, Beauty Itself Struck Me As A Kind Of Painful Melancholy.

Grief Is A Most Peculiar Thing; We’re So Helpless In The Face Of It. It’s Like A Window That Will Simply Open Of Its Own Accord. The Room Grows Cold, And We Can Do Nothing But Shiver. But It Opens A Little Less Each Time, And A Little Less; And One Day We Wonder What Has Become Of It.