Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

72 Sourced Quotes

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.

Kazuo Ishiguro
It is all very well, in these changing times, to adapt one's work to take in duties not traditionally within one's realm; but bantering is of another dimension altogether. For one thing, how would one know for sure that at any given moment a response of the bantering sort is truly what is expected? One need hardly dwell on the catastrophic possibility of uttering a bantering remark only to discover it wholly inappropriate.

Kazuo Ishiguro
She might be a great person, but life's so much bigger than just loving someone.

Kazuo Ishiguro
Her general drift was clear enough: we were all very special, being Hailsham students, and so it was all the more disappointing when we behave badly.

Kazuo Ishiguro
Even at the time, I realised this couldn't be right, that this interpretation didn't fit with the rest of the lyrics. But that wasn't an issue with me. The song was about what I said, and I used to listen to it again and again, on my own, whenever I got the chance.

Kazuo Ishiguro
I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea.

Kazuo Ishiguro
And so we stood together like that, at the top of that field for what seemed like ages, not saying anything, just holding each other, while the wind kept blowing and blowing at us, tugging our clothes, and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onto each other because that was the only way to stop us from being swept away into the night.

Kazuo Ishiguro
But I really wanted to find it for you. And when it looked in the end like it wasn't going to turn up, I just said to myself, one day I'll go to Norfolk and I'll find it there for her.' 'The lost corner of England,' I said.

Kazuo Ishiguro
If I'm alone at home, I get increasingly restless, bothered by the idea that I'm missing some crucial encounter out there somewhere. But if I'm left by myself in someone else's place, I often find myself a nice sense of peace engulfing me. I love sinking into an unfamiliar sofa with whatever book happens to be lying nearby.

Kazuo Ishiguro
I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?

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.

Kazuo Ishiguro
I took one glance at her in that hospital bed under the dull light and recognised the look on her face, which I'd seen on donors often enough before. It was like she was willing her eyes to see right inside herself, so she could patrol and marshal all the better the separate areas of pain in her body.

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
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
There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.

Kazuo Ishiguro
As with a wound on one's own body, it is possible to develop an intimacy with the most disturbing of things

Kazuo Ishiguro
It is one of the enjoyments of retirement that you are able to drift through the day at your own pace, easy in the knowledge that you have put hard work and achievement behind you.

Kazuo Ishiguro
Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans?

Kazuo Ishiguro
After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?

Kazuo Ishiguro
It didn't hurt, did it? When I hit you?" "Sure. Fractured skull. Concussion, the lot..." "But seriously, Kath. No hard feelings, right? I'm awfully sorry. I honestly am.

Kazuo Ishiguro
This is all strictly against regulations, of course, and Marie-Claude should never have asked you in. And naturally, I should have turned you out the second I knew you were here. But Marie-Claude doesn't care much for their regulations these days, and I must say, neither do I.

Kazuo Ishiguro
I half closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, and maybe even call.

Kazuo Ishiguro
At least you got him to pipe down', she said, 'are you okay? Mad animal?

Kazuo Ishiguro
The fantasy never got beyond that—I didn't let it—and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.

Kazuo Ishiguro
I won't be a carer any more come the end of the year and though i've got a lot out of it, i have to admit i'll welcome the chance to rest.

Kazuo Ishiguro