Of course, a sign doesn't mean anything unless you know how... - Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

"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."

"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."

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

"Flowers that grow where old ones have withered serve to remind us that death will one day come to us all."

"Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one."