Awesome / Memoirs of a Geisha

• At the party where Sayuri, the heroine, makes her debut as a geisha, she has an encounter with the Alpha Bitch, Hatsumomo:
  Hatsumomo: "Sayuri"... a name as sweet as she is. I'm afraid these days even a common chambermaid can call herself a geisha. So it's nice to see such a sincere young maiko, isn't it?
  General: Why yes!
  Mameha: Surely you would like to thank Hatsumomo for her gracious compliments?
  Sayuri: There is so much I would like to say to Hatsumomo.
  Hatsumomo: Sometimes the smartest remark is silence.
  Sayuri: What better advice to follow than your own?
  Mameha: Sayuri...
  Hatsumomo: Ah, a maiko. I was one myself, once.
  Sayuri: Of course... but it's been such a very long, long, long, long time.
• Sayuri's dance shoes. Standing in them without falling on her face would be hard enough, but she DANCES in them.
• There's a scene with the Mameha (Michelle Yeoh) teaching the protagonist, Sayuri (Zhang Zhiyi) that a true geisha can stop a man with her eyes. She demonstrates and then asks Sayuri to do so, which Sayuri does to a passer by riding a bicycle, causing him to crash.
• There is a scene in the book where apprentice Chiyo gets the beat of Hatsumomo. While at the same party, Hatsumomo starts to snark at Chiyo finishing with a remark about Chiyo's youth "You don't even have any hair yet" (the hair Hatsumomo referring to being pubic hair), Chiyo simply responds with "Oh I do, and plenty of it" before patting her head, making the man Hastumomo's entertaining (and trying to tear Chiyo down in front of) laugh and remark on Chiyo's cleverness.
• The book goes into detail about Hatsumomo's downfall. After how horrible Hatsumomo has been to Sayuri (and everyone else for that matter), seeing karma finally cath up with her is rather satisfying. The best part is, it really doesn't take much considering how much Hatsumomo isolated herself from everyone by being so abusive so she has no one who will take her side. The only reason Mother tolerated her was that she was the main breadwinner. But when she lost this status as Sayuri became more popular, she has no one. Sayuri even mentions that after Mother kicked her out when she bit a prominent kabuki actor, most okiya would've been glad to take her since she was still very successful if not for her cruel reputation.