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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?

Kazuo Ishiguro

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
Even the solitude, I’ve actually grown to quite like. I do like the feeling of getting into my little car, knowing for the next couple of hours I’ll have only the roads, the big gray sky and my daydreams for company.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Company Feeling Growth Myself Road Solitude
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
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
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
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
There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Dreams Life Myself Spiritual
I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they’d once belonged to the sea.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Book Myself Old Page Sea Thinking
One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Accident Oneself Quite Truth
I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Creation Interest Myself Novel World
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 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
What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Beautiful Calm Wisdom
When you become a parent, or a teacher, you turn into a manager of this whole system. You become the person controlling the bubble of innocence around a child, regulating it.
KAZUO ISHIGURO

Children Management Parents Person Teacher Yourself
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
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

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?

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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?

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