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 don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.

I worried she might spend an afternoon chatting with me about the sights and then wish me best of luck.

I don't like things held up before me that I cannot have.

We can never flee the misery that is within us.

I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school, and afterward went to work in Tokyo, where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha.

What I had to do was keep the story within certain limits of what was, of course, plausible.

Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.

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

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

Passion can quickly slip to jealousy, or even hatred.

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

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?

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.

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.

Geisha because when I was living in Japan, I met a fellow whose mother was a geisha, and I thought that was kind of fascinating and ended up reading about the subject just about the same time I was getting interested in writing fiction.

Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one.

As an American man of the 1990s writing about a Japanese woman of the 1930s, I needed to cross three cultural divides - man to woman, American to Japanese, and present to past.

I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school, and afterward went to work in Tokyo, where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha. He and I never discussed his parentage, which was an open secret, but it fascinated me.

Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be.

A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.

I stumbled out into the courtyard to try to flee my misery, but of course we can never flee the misery that is within us.

A mouse who wishes to fool the cat doesn't simply scamper out of its hole whenever it feels the slightest urge.

Even stone can be worn down with enough rain.

The swan who goes on living in its parents' tree will die; this is why those who are beautiful and talented bear the burden of finding their own way in the world.

A wounded tiger is a dangerous beast.

I recorded my hair this morning, tonight I'm watching the highlights.

Hair is also a problem. I remember once, when I was reporting from Beirut at the height of the civil war, someone wrote in to the BBC complaining about my appearance.

I hated Chris, my brother. I would pull his hair and kick him, until one day my father gave him permission to fight back. I'll be apologizing to him for the rest of my life.

I really don't like when things are all polished and perfect - the perfect love story and the hair is perfect.

I dyed my hair blonde in that movie, so my head doesn't match my grill.

I like to sing in the car with the windows rolled down and hair blowing all over my face.

When I was 12, every little girl in Russia was trying to wear her hair like mine and playing tennis.

I have the biggest hair in the world - and that's official!

You know, I do not think it is necessarily looks, I do not think I am the prettiest girl... Everyone has something that is their asset, some have the hair, some have the cheekbones, others have the lips. But once you know what is your asset, then you should capitalize on it.

If you look over the years, the styles have changed - the clothes, the hair, the production, the approach to the songs. The icing to the cake has changed flavors. But if you really look at the cake itself, it's really the same.

Surely the fact that a uniformed police officer is wearing his hair below his collar will make him no less identifiable as a policeman.

I was going to buy a book on hair loss, but the pages kept falling out.

Martin Jarvis was to have played the part originally but I think I had longer hair or something, I know not.

It was just using the liquid shampoo - the Russians have one very similar to the stuff we use on the Shuttle - you just wet your hair with it and then wipe it out.

I've been burn when it comes to my hair that it ain't no joke.

I really fought to make my character not a stereotype. I play a soap star with dyed blonde hair.

I'm the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don't have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere.

I grew up in Dallas, with cowboys. I was the only guy in sixth grade with long hair and an earring. Let's just say I got a lot of, er, flak for being different.

My singing is part of me, like my stoutness, or my light hair, or my poor eyesight.

Benji usually tries to match his hair with his underwear, and you know how he had the pink hair for a while well we caught him in a pink thong one day!

Yes, exercise is the catalyst. That's what makes everything happen: your digestion, your elimination, your sex life, your skin, hair, everything about you depends on circulation. And how do you increase circulation?

It doesn't matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I'm a woman or a man.

When I portray Stabler, I have to shave every day and cut my hair every week! And then, I really like to change my looks for films like 'Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle' where I have the pleasure of playing the ugliest man in the world.