Kazuo Ishiguro - Never let me go (2005)

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What is the gallery? why should she have a gallery of things done by us?

Kazuo Ishiguro
Tommy's got his shirt on. His favourite polo shirt.

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 saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel, world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go.

Kazuo Ishiguro
What I wished more than anything was that the thing hadn't happened at all, and I thought that by not mentioning it I'd be doing everyone else a favor.

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.

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
Kath, I've been looking all over for you. I mean't to say sorry. I mean, I'm really, really sorry. I honestly didn't mean to hit you the other day. I wouldn't dream of hitting a girl, and even if I did, I'd never want to hit you. I'm really, really sorry.

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

Kazuo Ishiguro
Miss Emily had an intellect you could slice logs with.

Kazuo Ishiguro
What he wanted was not just to hear about Hailsham, but to remember Hailsham, just like it had been his own childhood. He knew he was close to completing and so that's what he was doing: getting me to describe things to him, so they'd really sink in, so that maybe during those sleepless nights, with the drugs and the paint and the exhaustion, the line would blur between what were my memories and what were his.

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
The sales were important to us because that was how we got hold of things from outside.

Kazuo Ishiguro
You're always in a rush, or else you're too exhausted to have a proper conversation. Soon enough, the long hours, the traveling, the broken sleep have all crept into your being and become part of you, so everyone can see it, in your posture, your gaze, the way you move and talk.

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.

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
I realised, of course, that other people used these roads; but that night, it seemed to me these dark byways of the country existed just for the likes of us, while the big glittering motorways with their huge signs and super cafes were for everyone else.

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
It was like there was some parallel universe we all vanished off to where we had all this sex.

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
Well, this is a surprise. If you aren't here to give me trouble, then why are you here?

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...

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.

Kazuo Ishiguro
My donors have always tended to do much better than expected.

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

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

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 quizzed him a lot on this point and i suspect the truth was that it was like a lot of things at that age: you don't have any clear reason, you just do it. You do it because you think it might get a laugh, or because you want to see if it'll cause a stir. And when you're asked to explain afterwards, it doesn't seem to make any sense.

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
It never occurred to us to wonder how we would feel being seen like that.

Kazuo Ishiguro