Quotes by Kazuo Ishiguro

About Kazuo Ishiguro:

Kazuo Ishiguro is a British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan; his family moved to England in 1960 when he was five. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from the University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative-writing course in 1980.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

You say you’re ? Sure that you’re in love? How can you know it? You think love is so simple?

Kazuo Ishiguro

Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.

Kazuo Ishiguro

What he wanted was not just to hear about Hailsham, but to remember Hailsham, just like it had been his own childhood. He knew he was close to completing and so that's what he was doing: getting me to describe things to him, so they'd really sink in,...

Kazuo Ishiguro

Maybe from as early as when you're five or six, there's been a whisper going at the back of your head, saying: “One day, maybe not so long from now, you'll get to know how it feels.” So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for...

Kazuo Ishiguro

What I mean is, right from that first time, there was something in Tommy's manner that was tinged with sadness, that seemed to say: “Yes, we're doing this now and I'm glad we're doing it now. But what a pity we left it so late.

Kazuo Ishiguro

I suppose it had something to do with it being a secret, just how much it had meant to me. Maybe all of us at Hailsham had little secrets like that--little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone with our fears and longings....

Kazuo Ishiguro

Maybe all of us at Hailsam had little secrets like that -- little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone without fears and longing.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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

It was like there was some parallel universe we all vanished off to where we had all this sex.

Kazuo Ishiguro

I needed to get familiar with sex, and it would be just as well to practise first with a boy I didn't care about too much. Then later on, if I was with someone special, I'd have more chance of doing everything right.

Kazuo Ishiguro

You're always in a rush, or else you're too exhausted to have a proper conversation. Soon enough, the long hours, the traveling, the broken sleep have all crept into your being and become part of you, so everyone can see it, in your posture, your gaz...

Kazuo Ishiguro

Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it's a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust.

Kazuo Ishiguro

I can see,’ Miss Emily said, ‘that it might look as though you were simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns. There was a certain climate and now it’s gone. You have to accept that s...

Kazuo Ishiguro

But you play that passage like it's the -memory- of love. You're so young, yet you know desertion, abandonment. That's why you play that third movement the way you do. Most cellists, they play it with joy. But for you, it's not about joy, it's about ...

Kazuo Ishiguro

Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily coloured by the circumstances in which one remembers, and no doubt this applies to certain of the recollections I have gathered here. 

Kazuo Ishiguro

Wenn ich den Eindruck hätte, dass in dem, was Sie da sagen, auch nur ein Körnchen Vernunft steckt, würde ich mir vielleicht die Mühe machen, mich auf eine solche Diskussion einzulassen. Aber wie die Dinge liegen, werde ich einfach an etwas andere...

Kazuo Ishiguro

I do not think I responded immediately, for it took me a moment or two to fully digest these words of Miss Kenton. Moreover, as you might appreciate, their implications were such as to provoke a certain degree of sorrow within me. Indeed- why should ...

Kazuo Ishiguro

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

What do you think dignity's all about?' The directness of the inquiry did, I admit, take me rather by surprise. 'It's rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,' I said. 'But I suspect it comes down to not removing one's clothing in public.

Kazuo Ishiguro

All I know is that I've wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I'd get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it. But I don't want it anymore, I want something else now, something warm and sheltering, something I can t...

Kazuo Ishiguro

Everything might scatter. You might be right. I suppose it's something we can't easily get away from. People need to feel they belong. To a nation, to a race. Otherwise, who knows what might happen? This civilisation of ours, perhaps it'll just colla...

Kazuo Ishiguro

Author Bio

  • NameKazuo Ishiguro
  • Descriptionauthor from the United Kingdom
  • BornNovember 8, 1954
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionNovelist; Writer
  • AwardsMan Booker Prize; Costa Book Awards; Officer Of The Order Of The British Empire