Kazuo Ishiguro

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

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“Why, Mr Stevens, why, why, why do you always have to pretend?”

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“In fact, the harder he tried, the more laughable his efforts turned out.”

— Kazuo Ishiguro

Your life must now run the course that's been set for it.

— Kazuo Ishiguro

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

— Kazuo Ishiguro

People were incredibly kind to our family and went out of their way to help.

— Kazuo Ishiguro

So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy

— Kazuo Ishiguro

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

— Kazuo Ishiguro

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

— Kazuo Ishiguro

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

— Kazuo Ishiguro

I have the feeling of this completely alternative person I should have become. There was another life that I might have had,…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“Revolution? Really, Ono! The communists want a revolution. We want nothing of the sort. Quite the opposite, in fact. We wish for…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“Así que si lo he entendido bien..., bien, pues parece que he desperdiciado mi oportunidad.”

— Kazuo Ishiguro

Every country should have a strong literary tradition of its own at the center, but it should also have an interest in…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

The world is crawling with authors touring now. They're like performance artists.

— Kazuo Ishiguro

Now naturally, like many of us, I have a reluctance to change too much of the old ways.

— Kazuo Ishiguro

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…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better if the Almighty had created us all as – well – as sort of…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed. If I’d…

— 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,…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

People aren't quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They're not quite sure what is being…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

The Booker triumph of Graham Swift's moving, effortlessly profound Last Orders is a vindication of the quiet, much-misunderstood path this fine writer…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

I really have to think of the things fiction can do that film can't and play to the strengths of the novel.…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

I had been plunged into a different world. I found myself spending half my time answering weird questions on book tours in…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

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…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“More fundamentally, I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure,…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“I suppose I do not on the whole greatly admire the 'Tortoises' of this world. While one may appreciate their plodding steadiness…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“She thinks I've let myself down,' he was saying. 'But I haven't. I'm doing perfectly okay. Endless horizons are all very well…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

You could say I'd rewritten the same novel three times and I thought I had to move on. The success of the…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“About him and his wife voting for different parties. A few years ago that would have been unthinkable.” “No doubt.” “Quite extraordinary…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“And let me now posit this: ‘dignity’ has to do crucially with a butler’s ability not to abandon the professional being he…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“A few minutes later, he said suddenly: 'Kath, can we stop? I'm sorry, I need to get out a minute.' ...I could…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“In any case, while it is all very well to talk of 'turning points', one can surely only recognise such moments in…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and me, there is little choice other than to leave our…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“Left alone, I must quickly have drifted off into my own thoughts, for I did not notice the barman return. He must…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“But that doesn't mean to say, of course, there aren't occasions now and then - extremely desolate occasions - when you think…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields,…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“It is sometimes said that butlers only truly exist in England. Other countries, whatever title is actually used, have only manservants. I…

— Kazuo Ishiguro