This page contains quotes from the movie Memoirs of a Geisha. You can find more Alphabetized listing of films for which quotations are available in the index page. Thanks to the many celebrated and unheralded screenwriters who have provided these memorable movie quotes and lines of dialogue.


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Quotes from the movie Memoirs of a Geisha
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A story like mine should never be told. For my world is as forbidden as it is fragile. Without its mysteries it cannot survive.
Narrator


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.
Narrator


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


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.
Narrator


To a man Geisha can only be half a wife. We are the wives of nightfall. And yet to learn of kindness, after so much unkindness... To understand that a little girl with more courage than she knew, would find that her prayers were answered. Can that not be called happiness? After all these are not the memoirs of an empress, nor of a queen...these are memoirs of another kind.
Narrator


Remember Chiyo, geisha are not courtesans, and we're 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.
Mameha


You cannot call yourself a true geisha until you can stop a man in his tracks with a single look.
Mameha


We don't become geisha to pursue our own destinies. We become geisha because we have no choice.
Mameha


No man would ever bid so much for a thing he had already taken.
Mameha


None of us find as much kindness in this life, as we should.
Chairman Iwamura


Where did you come by such surprising eyes?
Chairman Iwamura


Smile for me, won't you?
Chairman Iwamura


Three things matter in life... sumo, business, and war. Understand one, you know them all. But why should a Geisha care? You spend your time plucking strings and dancing.
President Nobu


I never seek to defeat the man I am fighting, I seek to defeat his confidence. A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. Two men are equalsótrue equalsóonly when they both have equal confidence.
President Nobu


Not every geisha uses that kind of currency.
Sayuri


I beg to differ. What is sumo but a dance between giants? What is business but a dance between companies? I wish to know about every kind of dance.
Sayuri


I see now why you like Sumo, you can never judge a man's power by his appearance alone.
Sayuri


I want a life that is mine!
Sayuri