Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

Don’t you wonder sometimes, what might have happened if you tried?

There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.

Many of our deepest motives come, not from an adult logic of how things work in the world, but out of something that is frozen from childhood.

I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.

Love isn't about when you first meet. It's about the many, many years you spend together, when you're trying to keep that flame burning.

If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of.

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.

What is the point of worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one's life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.

What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.

Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily coloured by the circumstances in which one remembers.

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.

I discovered that my imagination came alive when I moved away from the immediate world around me.

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.

As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.

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.

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.

An artist's concern is to capture beauty wherever he finds it.

There is certainly a satisfaction and dignity to be gained in coming to terms with the mistakes one has made in the course of one’s life

…It’s hard to appreciate the beauty of a world when one doubts its very validity….But I’ve long since lost all such doubts, Ono,’ he continued. ‘When I am an old man, when I look back over my life and see I have devoted it to the task of capturing the unique beauty of that world, I believe I will be well satisfied. And no man will make me believe I’ve wasted my time.

She always wanted to believe in things.

All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.

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

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.

I have the feeling of this completely alternative person I should have become. There was another life that I might have had, but I’m having this one.

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?