Sayuri Narration: The heart dies a slow death. Shedding each hope like leaves, until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.
Chairman: We must not expect happiness, Sayuri. It is not something we deserve. When life goes well, it is a sudden gift; it cannot last forever...
Sayuri Narration: At the temple, there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read Loss, only feel it.
Sayuri Nitta: 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.
Mameha: Water is powerful. It can wash away earth, put out fire, and even destroy iron.
Mameha: [explaining sex to Sayuri] Every once in a while, a man's "eel" likes to visit a woman's... "cave."
Sayuri Nitta: Yes, I know.
Mameha: You do?
Sayuri Nitta: I live with Hatsumomo.
Sayuri Narration: A story like mine should never be told. For my world is as forbidden as it is fragile. Without its mysteries it cannot survive. I certainly wasn't born to the life of a geisha. Like so much in my strange life, I was carried there by the current.
Hatsumomo: I was a maiko once.
Sayuri Nitta: Oh, of course. But that was a long, long, long, *long* time ago.
Mameha: [in voiceover] 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.
Hatsumomo: [suggesting that Mameha used immoral methods to gain Sayuri the lead role in the dances] What did Mameha do, speak with the Director in *private*?
Sayuri Nitta: Not *all* geisha use that kind of currency.
Narrator (Old Sayuri): It is not for Geisha to want. It is not for a Geisha to feel. Geisha is an artist of the floating world. She dances, she sings, she entertains you... What ever you want... the rest is shadows, the rest is secret.
Sayuri Narration: [gazing at a ruined Hatsumomo in the streets] I could be her. Were we so different? She loved once. She hoped once. I could be her. I might be looking into my own future... Until the real future came falling from the air.
Sayuri Narration: [while little Chiyo is on the train to the hanamachi] My mother always said my sister, Satsu was like wood. As rooted to the earth as a sakura tree... But she told me I was like water... Water can carve its way through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path.
Mameha: [to Chiyo] Your cave is untouched. Men like that. We call this "mizuage". And to become a full geisha, you must sell it to the highest bidder.
The Baron: [while forcefully undressing Sayuri] Sayuri, I'm only having a look. Any man would do the same.
