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I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?

Kazuo Ishiguro

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

Difference Reputation Thinking Winner Writing
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
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

Frame Memories Myself Novel Remember Thinking Universe
It is one of the enjoyments of retirement that you are able to drift through the day at your own pace, easy in the knowledge that you have put hard work and achievement behind you.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Achievement Day Easy Enjoyment Hard Work Knowledge 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
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
I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Creation Interest Myself Novel World
An artist’s concern is to capture beauty wherever he finds it.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Artist Beautiful Himself
There are things I am more interested in than the clone thing. How are they trying to find their place in the world and make sense of their lives? To what extent can they transcend their fate? As time starts to run out, what are the things that really matter?
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Fate Imitation Interest Myself Run Science Time Transcendence World
All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

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

Capability Doubt Impression Perfection Rise Yourself
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
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
You say you’re sure? Sure that you’re in love? How can you know it? You think love is so simple?
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Love Simplicity Yourself
One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Accident Oneself Quite Truth
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
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.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Life Mistake Oneself Satisfaction
What interests me is the surprising enormous extent to which most people accept the fate that’s been given to them, and find some dignity.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Acceptance Dignity Interest Myself People
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.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

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

Dreams Life Myself Spiritual
But then, I suppose, when with the benefit of hindsight one begins to search one’s past for such ‘turning points’, one is apt to start seeing them everywhere.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Beginning Myself Search See Start
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

Conflict End Fight Greatness Health Organization
I want my words to survive translation.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Myself Survive Translation Word
I’ve always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Fiction Greatness Interest Myself
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

Imagination Myself Nature Quite Travel
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.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Burn Flame Love Relationship Togetherness Yourself

I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?

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I can’t even say I made my own mistakes. Really – one has to ask oneself – what dignity is there in that?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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