Kazuo Ishiguro - Never let me go (2005)

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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
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.

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
... I must admit, if it hadn't been for the encounter on the stairs, i probably wouldn't have taken the interest I did in Tommy's problems over the next several weeks.

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
Ruth, incidentally, was only the third or fourth donor I got to choose.

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.

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
And I'm a Hailsham student - which is enough by itself sometimes to get people's backs up.

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
Because maybe, in a way, we didn't leave it behind nearly as much as we might once have thought. Because somewhere underneath, a part of us stayed like that: fearful of the world around us, and no matter how much we despised ourselves for it—unable quite to let each other go.

Kazuo Ishiguro