Quote

It is confusing, because in this culture we really don't have anything that corresponds to geisha.

Martial arts is just practice. Being a geisha requires complete control.

To be a geisha, you have to have to an iron-clad layer around you - around your physical body and your heart.

What I really wanted to know, though, was what it was like to be a geisha? Where do you sleep? What do you eat? How do you have your hair done?

I was really interested in geishas' work, and wanted to meet real geishas.

'Memoirs of a Geisha' is everything you'd expect it to be: beautiful, mesmerizing, tasteful, Japanese. It's just not very hot.

For myself I don't like the geisha look. It's like a mask.

It is impossible to remain indifferent to Japanese culture. It is a different civilisation where all you have learnt must be forgotten. It is a great intellectual challenge and a gorgeous sensual experience.

The Chinese culture belongs not only to the Chinese but also to the whole world.

I think that the Japanese culture is one of the very few cultures left that is its own entity. They're just so traditional and so specific in their ways. It's kind of untouched, it's not Americanized.