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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

Because maybe, in a way, we didn’t leave it behind nearly as much as we might once have thought. Because somewhere underneath, a part of us stayed like that: fearful of the world around us, and no matter how much we despised ourselves for it–unable quite to let each other go.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Fear Leaving Ourselves Philosophy Quite Stay
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
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.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Beautiful Calm Feeling Greatness Land
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
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

Body Care Human Live Love Loyalty Possession Right Status Wrong Yourself
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
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
One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Accident Oneself Quite Truth
I discovered that my imagination came alive when I moved away from the immediate world around me.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Alive Discover Imagination Myself World
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.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Disaster Fingers Mistake Move Yourself
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
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
The problem, as I see it, is that you’ve been told and not told. You’ve been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Happiness Leaving Myself People Problem See Understand
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
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
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.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Acceptance Growth People Process World

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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