Top 70 Mineko Iwasaki Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

2. “Cleaning is considered a vital part of the training process in all traditional Japanese disciplines and is a required practice for any novice. It is accorded spiritual significance. Purifying an unclean place is believed to purify the mind.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

3. “A geiko’s kimono is a work of art and I would never wear a kimono that wasn’t absolutely perfect. All the kimono worn by maiko and geiko are one of a kind. Many of them are given names, like paintings, and are treasured as such. This is why I have such a vivid memory of everything I ever wore.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

4. “This has been one of the best days of my life,” she said.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

5. “Auntie Oima told me that the reason our hair ornaments have pointed ends is so that we can use them to defend our customers from attack.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

6. “I opened my own place in June of 1977. I named it Club Hollyhock.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

7. “I was thoroughly fed up with the system. I had followed the rules for all these years, but there was no way I could stay in the system and do what I wanted to do. The whole reason why the organization of Gion Kobu had been systematized in the first place was to ensure the dignity and financial independence of the women who worked there. Yet the strictures of the Inoue School kept us subservient to its authority. There was no room for any sort of autonomy.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

8. “And we are not mountaintop sages who can live by consuming mist.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

9. “I lay there alone for hours, crying my eyes out. I was still trying to rationalize the relationship: Why can’t I let things just stay as they are? What difference does it make if he’s married? But the fact is it did matter. I refused to be second best any longer.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

10. “This is why the whole notion of “geisha houses” being dens of ill repute is so ridiculous. Men are barely allowed inside these bastions of feminine society, let alone permitted to frolic with the inhabitants after they arrive.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

11. “We are de facto diplomats who have to be able to communicate with anyone. But this doesn’t mean we are doormats.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

12. “I took the obi from my father’s chest and took it with me. I kept it until I met my husband. I gave it to him. He still wears it.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

13. “Her death was a defining moment in my life. It felt like the brightest light in Gion Kobu had gone dark. Sadly, she was the last master of the musical tradition in which she had been trained. The form died with her.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

14. “So we support the dance but it does not support us.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

15. “This transparent system of accounting means that we know which geiko did the most business on any given day. It is always clear who is Number One.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

16. “They begged me not to quit. But they didn’t offer to change anything.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

17. “Without thinking, I took one of the black velvet ribbons from my hair, wrapped it around my neck, pulled as hard as I could, and tried to kill myself. It didn’t work.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

18. “One time after the adoption papers came through I was fooling around with a water pistol and, in a childish bid for attention, sprayed her. She came after me and said, “If you were my real child I’d give you a good spanking.” It was like a slap in the face. I thought I was her child.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

19. “I looked at him and said, “I’ve died.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

20. “A real mother could not have done more. Maybe the time has come to change my mind, I thought. When we finished the meal I took the plunge. I looked directly at her and said, “Mom, let’s go home.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

21. “I figured if I was enjoying myself, then the customers were probably enjoying themselves as well, and didn’t go out of my way to try to please them.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

22. “How come we kept celebrating things that made me feel bad?”

— Mineko Iwasaki

23. “My father had two favorite sayings. One is a saying about samurai. It is a kind of proverb that says a samurai must keep to a higher standard than the common man. Even if he has nothing to eat, he pretends that he has plenty, meaning that a samurai never lets go of his pride.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

24. “Sometimes I had to be nice to people whom I found physically repulsive. This was the hardest because repulsion is a difficult reaction to conceal. But the customers had paid for my company. The least I could do was treat every one of them graciously.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

25. “It is said that a person who has the eyes to see can penetrate to the core of a person’s character, no matter how old that person might be.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

26. “Whom did I belong to?”

— Mineko Iwasaki

27. “I had unwittingly crossed a line. Not only was Hikari-chan an outcast, but she was also a half-breed, fathered out of wedlock by an American GI. It was all too much for Auntie Oima, who couldn’t contain her fear that I would be contaminated by association. Keeping my reputation unsullied was one of her major preoccupations.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

28. “I have no idea. It’s not my problem. But I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Anyway, you aren’t what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a grand passion, someone who will sweep me off my feet and teach me all about love. And then I’m going to become a really great dancer.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

29. “A star geiko is never, ever alone and I always wanted to be by myself.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

30. “In my mind I believe that her love for him still exists and that it will continue on for a thousand years, or into eternity.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

31. “For the first time I understood how important it was to Auntie Oima that I become a maiko. It was a powerful realization. I really hadn’t been paying attention.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

32. “I was moved by her emotion, but she was unable to say the one thing I longed to hear. She couldn’t say, “Whatever you do, Mineko, please don’t stop dancing.” The system wouldn’t allow it. When I stopped being a geiko I would have to stop dancing.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

33. “These days, unfortunately, people of means may no longer have the time and interest to pursue such hobbies.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

34. “I felt powerless, like a carp on the cutting board ready to be sliced into sashimi.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

35. “My own days are unrestrained and unfettered. I am no longer ruled by the dictates of the Inoue School. I dance when I want. I dance how I want. And I dance where I want.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

36. “I didn’t feel any guilt over my decision to close the okiya. I had given the Gion Kobu everything I had and it was no longer giving me what I needed. I had no regrets.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

37. “As soon as I walked through the door I went straight into the closet. I rocked myself and chanted, “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I’ll never do it again,” over and over again in my head, like a mantra.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

38. “I wonder why I was so hard on myself. It was something about my father, something about feeling so alone. I completely believed that the answer to everything was self-discipline. I believed that self-discipline was the key to beauty.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

39. “No, Mineko, beauty is universal. There is an absolute principle in this world that underlies the appearance and disappearance of all phenomena. That is what we call karma. It is constant and immutable, and gives rise to universal values like beauty and morality.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

40. “My real problem isn’t in my throat or kidneys. The doctor should have operated on my heart instead.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

41. “You’re not fine. You could die if you keep this up.” “Ah, the beautiful always die young.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

42. “But life was too full for me to dwell on anything for very long. When I was seven I became self-conscious of the fact that I was a “very busy person.” I always had somewhere to go, something to do, someone to see.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

43. “As I expected, my retirement sent shock waves through the system. But not in the way I intended. In the three months after I retired, seventy other geiko also quit the business. I appreciated the gesture, though it seemed a little late to be showing solidarity with me at that point. And the powers that be didn’t change a thing.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

44. “I feel such poignancy when I look back and see this image of myself, this unworldly young woman, trying so hard to please, yet not wanting anyone to come near.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

45. “Basically, I was booked solid for the entire five years that I was a maiko.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

46. “And no matter how accomplished one may be, the hard work is to no avail if one doesn’t have the proper clothes in which to appear in public.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

47. “It was a test. Would I come back stronger? Or would I give up and quit? I don’t think this is a particularly enlightened educational philosophy, but, in my case at least, it always had the desired effect.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

48. “I had found what I was looking for. I was madly in love, and the intensity of our passion made a profound difference in my life. More than anything else, it affected my dancing, which attained the expressiveness I had been seeking for so long.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

49. “And a geiko brings with her the cornucopia of connections she has cultivated over her career, which can be very important for a young man starting out.”

— Mineko Iwasaki

50. “That one painting entirely changed my future.”

— Mineko Iwasaki