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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

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

Dreams Life Myself Spiritual
As with a wound on one’s own body, it is possible to develop an intimacy with the most disturbing of things.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Body Development Disturb Intimacy Possible Wound
Now naturally, like many of us, I have a reluctance to change too much of the old ways.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Change Myself Natural Old Way
I try to always go for something very interior, following thoughts and memories, something that I think is difficult to do on the screen, which is essentially a third-person medium.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Essential Interior Memories Myself Person
I like the fact that by mimicking the way memory works, a writer can actually write in a fluid way – one solid scene doesn’t have to fall on another solid scene, you can just have a fragment that then dovetails into another one that took place 30 years apart from it.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Fact Fragment Memories Place Time Work Writing
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

Light Myself Pieces See
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.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Best Day Enjoyment Work Yourself
I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Dignity Mistake Myself
What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Beautiful Calm Wisdom
I’ve always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Fiction Greatness Interest Myself
The Booker triumph of Graham Swift’s moving, effortlessly profound Last Orders is a vindication of the quiet, much-misunderstood path this fine writer chose to take after the brilliance of Waterland more than ten years ago.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Brilliant Effort Move Quiet Understand
Indeed — why should I not admit it? — in that moment, my heart was breaking.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Break Heart Moments Myself
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

Complete Different Enough Feeling Live Myself Time
I was a little concerned that a lot of people thought I wrote Merchant Ivory movies. I also thought if I was ever going to write something strange and difficult, that was the time.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Difficult People Story Strange Thinking Time Writing
People aren’t quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They’re not quite sure what is being recommended, what literary values it stands for, because every year it stands for something different.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Book Different People Quite Stand Value Winner
I felt slightly superior to student politics, for instance. I had no reason to think this, but I thought of myself as slightly more seasoned. I became quite cynical talking to my student friends.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Friendship Myself Politics Quite Reason Student Talk Thinking
I cannot start a story or chapter without knowing how it ends. Of course, it rarely ends that way.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

End Myself Rare Start Way
I don’t think it’s any fun, even if you are one of the most respected authors in the world like Margaret Atwood, to keep being nominated and not win.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Author Fun Myself Nomination Respect Thinking
Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily coloured by the circumstances in which one remembers.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Color Memories Oneself Remember
All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Children Growth Trauma
Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Memories Memory Quite Writing
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

Chance Issues Lyrics Myself Right Time
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

Art Evidence Reveal Soul Yourself
There comes a point when you can more or less count the number of books you’re going to write before you die.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Book Count Death Writing Yourself
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

Live Need Oneself Remember Yourself
My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also people like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and that whole generation.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Friendship Generation Hero Myself Writing
Its was one of those events which at a crucial stage in one’s development arrive to challenge and stretch one to the limit of one’s ability and beyond, so that thereafter one has a new standard by which to judge oneself.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Ability Challenge Development Judgement Limitation Oneself

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes