Arthur Golden
Arthur Golden
Arthur Goldenis an American writer. He is the author of the bestselling novel Memoirs of a Geisha...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth6 December 1956
CountryUnited States of America
believe fighting water
It's your duty to use what influence you have, unless you want to drift through life like a fish belly-up on the stream" "I wish I could believe that life really is something more than a stream that carries us along, belly-up" "Alright, if it's a stream, you're still free to be in this part of it or that part, aren't you? The water will divide again and again. If you bump, and tussle, and fight, and make use of whatever advantages you might have-" "Oh, that's fine, I'm sure, when you have advantages." "You'd find them everywhere, if you ever bothered to look!
believe people forever
An en is a karmic bond lasting a lifetime. Nowadays many people seem to believe their lives are entirely a matter of choice; but in my day we viewed ourselves as pieces of clay that forever show the fingerprints of everyone who has touched them.
absolutely book finally japan written
Well, I'm working on something that has absolutely nothing to do with Japan. I finally got the book written on Japan that I wanted to write.
mean memories-of-a-geisha knows
Of course, a sign doesn't mean anything unless you know how to interpret it.
life-is-like sometimes odd
Perhaps it seems odd that a casual meeting on the street could have brought about such change. But sometimes life is like that isn't it
entirely recognize
This character's entirely invented, and the woman that I interviewed wouldn't recognize herself, or really anything about herself, in this book, which she hasn't read, because she doesn't read English.
again decided details found historical people third throw time written
This time all the historical details and things were right. But I'd written it again in third person, and people found it dry. I decided to throw that one away.
What I had to do was keep the story within certain limits of what was, of course, plausible.
american-writer
It is confusing, because in this culture we really don't have anything that corresponds to geisha.
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?
entertain happened hire japanese men sit stay women
When men go out, the women stay at home. And historically what has always happened is the Japanese men hire women to sit and kind of entertain them.
arabia bearing cultures danish hamlet history lawrence middle mind politics poor worth
It's worth bearing in mind that Hamlet makes poor Danish history and that Lawrence of Arabia grossly oversimplifies the politics and cultures of the Middle East.
art bearing concern cultures danish drama factual higher history itself judged mean middle mind politics poor work worth
It's worth bearing in mind that 'Hamlet' makes poor Danish history and that 'Lawrence of Arabia' grossly oversimplifies the politics and cultures of the Middle East. I don't mean to say that drama should never concern itself with factual accuracy, only that a work of art must be judged by a higher standard.
storm moments barren
Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable?