Kazuo Ishiguro quotes

As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened. (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don't go along with that. The memories I value most, I don't ever see them fading. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
An artist's concern is to capture beauty wherever he finds it. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever. (Kazuo Ishiguro)
The evening's the best part of the day. You've done your day's work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
She always wanted to believe in things. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
It was like there was some parallel universe we all vanished off to where we had all this sex. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
Indeed - why should I not admit it? - in that moment, my heart was breaking. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans? View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
My donors have always tended to do much better than expected. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
Perhaps it is indeed time I began to look at this whole matter of bantering more enthusiastically. After all, when one thinks about it, it is not such a foolish thing to indulge in – particularly if it is the case that in bantering lies the key to human warmth. (Kazuo Ishiguro)
And I'm a Hailsham student – which is enough by itself sometimes to get people's backs up. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it's a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
And if these incidents now seem full of significance and all of a piece, it's probably because I'm looking at them in the light of what came later... View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
You need to remember that. If you're to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro