What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time. Kazuo Ishiguro More Quotes by Kazuo Ishiguro More Quotes From Kazuo Ishiguro What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. Kazuo Ishiguro calmness restraint pertinent 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 girl eye heart 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 gains forever might When I got to 40 or so... I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of which I had thought about, some of which I had sort of stumbled on, and many that I had no control over whatsoever. Kazuo Ishiguro mess decision literature Even the solitude, I've actually grown to quite like... I do like the feeling of getting into my little car, knowing for the next couple of hours I'll have only the roads, the big gray sky and my daydreams for company. Kazuo Ishiguro couple knowing sky I've always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. Kazuo Ishiguro christie detectives fiction I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea. Kazuo Ishiguro gone sea thinking Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won't be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It'll be because people have changed. They'll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy. Kazuo Ishiguro healthy church people You say you’re sure? Sure that you’re in love? How can you know it? You think love is so simple? Kazuo Ishiguro simple love-is thinking Typically in my novels the narrator tells a story by remembering, and the memories are colored by this and colored by that. So the whole universe of the novel tends to be framed by the narrator's memories and thoughts. Kazuo Ishiguro framed remember memories I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs. Kazuo Ishiguro stories wanted song We all live inside bodies that will deteriorate. But when you look at human beings, they're capable of very decent things: love, loyalty. When time is running out, they don't care about possessions or status. They want to put things right if they've done wrong. Kazuo Ishiguro loyalty running looks I think there is a huge difference between writers who have very big sales, and writers who have small sales. Even writers with very high reputations, even Nobel prize winners, often sell in very low figures. Kazuo Ishiguro reputation differences thinking There's still a part of me that thinks I have to write a really good novel. I'm not trying to say I'm not happy with the novels I've written in the past. But it always feels to me like there's another one that I have to write that will really say what I want to say, and really paint this world that I can see hazily in my head. Kazuo Ishiguro writing past thinking 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 never-let-me-go running life For a great many people, the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day. Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. 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 forever advice people And what made these heart-to-hearts possible--you might even say what made the whole friendship possible during that time--was this understanding we had that anything we told each other during these moments would be treated with careful respect: that we'd honor confidences, and that no matter how much we rowed, we wouldn't use against each other anything we'd talked about during those sessions. Kazuo Ishiguro understanding honor heart I can see,’ Miss Emily said, ‘that it might look as though you were simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns. There was a certain climate and now it’s gone. You have to accept that sometimes that’s how things happen in the 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.’ ‘It might be just some trend that came and went,’ I said. ‘But for us, it’s our life. Kazuo Ishiguro games people thinking As I say, I have never in all these years thought of the matter in quite this way; but then it is perhaps in the nature of coming away on a trip such as this that one is prompted towards such surprising new perspectives on topics one imagined one had long ago thought throughly. Kazuo Ishiguro long-ago perspective years Perhaps there are those who are able to go about their lives unfettered by such concerns. But for those like us, our fate is to face the world as orphans, chasing through long years the shadows of vanished parents. There is nothing for it but to try and see through our missions to the end, as best we can, for until we do so, we will be permitted no calm. Kazuo Ishiguro fate long years
