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

I loved cowboy films and TV series, and I learned bits of English from them. My favorite was 'Laramie', with Robert Fuller and John Smith. I used to watch 'The Lone Ranger', which had been famous in Japan as well. I idolized these cowboys.

Kazuo Ishiguro

I couldn't speak Japanese very well, passport regulations were changing, I felt British, and my future was in Britain. And it would also make me eligible for literary awards. But I still think I'm regarded as one of their own in Japan.

Kazuo Ishiguro

What is difficult is the promotion, balancing the public side of a writer's life with the writing. I think that's something a lot of writers are having to face. Writers have become much more public now.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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

Kazuo Ishiguro

I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of which I had thought about, some of which I had sort of stumbled on and many that I had no control over whatsoever.

Kazuo Ishiguro

Even though I spent the first five years of my life in Nagasaki, going to Japan can be really difficult. Even if they know I've been brought up in the West, they still expect me to understand all the subtleties of their culture, and if I get it wrong...

Kazuo Ishiguro

When I got to 40 or so... I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of which I had thought about, some of which I had sort of stumbled on, and many that I had no control over whatsoever.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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 ...

Kazuo Ishiguro

I discovered that my imagination came alive when I moved away from the immediate world around me.

Kazuo Ishiguro

Now when I look back to the Guildford of that time, it seems far more exotic to me than Nagasaki.

Kazuo Ishiguro

There's a practical problem about time and energy, and a more subtle problem of what it does to a writer's head, to continually analyze why they write, where it all comes from, where it's going to.

Kazuo Ishiguro

I had been plunged into a different world. I found myself spending half my time answering weird questions on book tours in the Midwest. People would stand up and explain to me the situation in their office and ask me whether they should resign or not...

Kazuo Ishiguro

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 reall...

Kazuo Ishiguro

I don't hang out with the glitteringly successful people; I hang out with people who've been friends for many years, and to some extent I feel my worldly success is a bit uncomfortable for them.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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

When I was younger, I didn't read that much. I was more interested in film and music. Now I'm curious. I want to know what it's all about.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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

When I write a novel, I want it to be completely different from a screenplay. I'm very conscious of the difference, and I want novels to work purely as novels. Otherwise I don't see how they'll survive - why don't we just all go to the movies or watc...

Kazuo Ishiguro

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

Many of our deepest motives come, not from an adult logic of how things work in the world, but out of something that is frozen from childhood.

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