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Life Quotes by Arthur Golden

41 Life quotes by Arthur Golden

All Life quotes Arthur Golden’s page

Arthur Golden tells us to live life by sharing its story, keeping our eyes open for destiny. He compares moments to a wind that moves a cloud, and describes life as an onion that peels layer by layer while we cry. He reminds us that life is never as simple as we imagine.

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“He lived in a world that was visible, even if it didn't always please him to be there.”

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I've lived my life again just telling it to you.

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Here again, I saw life in all its noisy excitement passing me by.

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Nothing in life is ever as simple as we imagine.

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“I understood that he left me at the end of his long life just as naturally as the leaves fall from the…

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If you have experienced an evening more exciting than any in your life, you're sad to see it end; and yet you…

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It was what we Japanese called the onion life, peeling away a layer at a time and crying all the while.

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If those sorts of moments would be the only pleasure life offered me, I'd be better off shutting out that one brilliant…

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Occasionally in life we come upon things we can't understand, because we have never seen anything similar.

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“I expect you to go through life with your eyes open! If you keep your destiny in mind, every moment in life…

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“Every step I have taken in my life since I was a child in Gion, I have taken in the hope of…

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The swan who goes on living in its parents' tree will die; this is why those who are beautiful and talented bear…

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I cannot tell you what it is that guides us in this life; but for me, I fell toward the Chairman just…

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Neither you nor I can know your destiny. You may never know it! Destiny isn't always like a party at the end…

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“As a young girl I believed my life would never have been a struggle if Mr.Tanaka hadn't torn me away from my…

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“We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something…

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Couldn't the wrong sort of living turn anyone mean? I remembered very well that one day back in Yoroido, a boy pushed…

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“If we rub a fabric too often, it will quickly grow threadbare; and Nobu’s words had rasped against me so much, I…

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What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realized I'd never really tasted to things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd…

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“Here you are...A beautiful girl with nothing to be ashamed of...And yet you are afraid to look at me. Someone has been…

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From this experience, I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. What if I came to the end of…

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In the instant before the door opened, I could almost sense my life expanding just like a river whose waters have begun…

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“that droplet of moisture that had slipped from me like a tear seemed almost to tell the story of my life. It…

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“It struck me that we-that moth and I-were two opposite extremes. My existence was as unstable as a stream, changing in every…

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It's your duty to use what influence you have, unless you want to drift through life like a fish belly-up on the…

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Here's the thing: this eel spends its entire life trying to find a home, and what do you think women have inside…

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“You're eighteen years old, Sayuri," she went on. "Neither you nor I can know your destiny. You may never know it! Destiny…

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“I don't know for sure what ever became of Hatsumomo. A few years after the war, I heard she was making a…

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We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something…

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It's less a matter of looking the other way than of closing our eyes to what we can't stop from happening.

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If you keep your destiny in mind, every moment in life becomes an opportunity for moving closer to it.

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“And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? I would be like a dancer who…

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“And suddenly everything around me seemed to grow quiet, as if he were the wind that blew and I were just a…

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And when I raised myself to look at the man who'd spoken, I had a feeling of leaving my misery behind me…

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Perhaps it seems odd that a casual meeting on the street could have brought about such change. But sometimes life is like…

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By the time we arrived, as evening was approaching, I felt as sore as a rock must feel when the waterfall has…

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Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind…

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“But, Mameha-san, I don’t want kindness!” “Don’t you? I thought we all wanted kindness. Perhaps what you mean is that you want…

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“I wasn’t thanking him for the coin, or even for the trouble he’d taken in stopping to help me. I was thanking…

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“Since the day I’d left Yoroido, I’d done nothing but worry that every turn of life’s wheel would bring yet another obstacle…

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More by Arthur Golden

He was like a song I'd heard once in fragments but had been singing in my mind ever since.

Sometimes we get through adversity only by imagining what the world might be like if our dreams should ever come true.

When we fight upstream against a rocky undercurrent, every foothold takes on a kind of urgency.

Never give up; for even rivers someday wash dams away.

“Oh I'm sure you're right," Auntie said. "Probably she's just as you say. But she looks to me like a very clever girl, and…

“I'm not sure this will make sense to you, but I felt as though I'd turned around to look in a different direction, so…

“We human beings are only a part of something very much larger. When we walk along, we may crush a beetle or simply cause…

If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was.

You know, the men go to tea houses with the expectation that they will have a nice quiet evening and not read about it…

Adversity is like a strong wind. I don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears…

“Most nights I lay on my futon I was sick with anxiety, and felt a pit inside myself as big and empty as if…

Of course, a sign doesn't mean anything unless you know how to interpret it.

“I knew even then that she was right. An en is a karmic bond lasting a lifetime. Nowadays many people seem to believe their…

I didn't say to act dead. I said act helpless.

“I'm not sure this will make sense to you but I felt as though I'd turned around to look in a different direction so…