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
Related When I got to 40 or so... I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mes... KAZUO ISHIGURO I don't know if I have a favorite color. KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl. KATE MIDDLETON It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained. QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and... QUEEN ELIZABETH II My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime. QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have to be seen to be believed. QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughou... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana's loss, ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast. QUEEN ELIZABETH II The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be. QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but t... QUEEN ELIZABETH II To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in th... QUEEN ELIZABETH II What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something e... QUEEN ELIZABETH II To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts an... QUEEN ELIZABETH II Grief is the price we pay for love. QUEEN ELIZABETH II The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a nobl... QUEEN ELIZABETH II At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Chr... QUEEN ELIZABETH II For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first. QUEEN ELIZABETH II The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses w... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your s... QUEEN ELIZABETH II Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendor that are g... QUEEN ELIZABETH II We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the man... QUEEN ELIZABETH II Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as... QUEEN ELIZABETH II These wretched babies don't come until they are ready. QUEEN ELIZABETH II I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has t... QUEEN ELIZABETH II In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters... QUEEN ELIZABETH II No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and o... QUEEN ELIZABETH II We'll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want... PRINCE WILLIAM Family is the most important thing in the world. PRINCESS DIANA You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I ... CATHERINE THE GREAT With the right help, children have a good chance of overcoming their issues while they are still you... KATE MIDDLETON As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. KING SOLOMON I don't mind a big fascinator. I think there is more scope for artwork in a fascinator rather th... ZARA PHILLIPS I was always told from the hat-makers that you should have your hair up because it shows the hat mor... ZARA PHILLIPS I don't think I'll still be riding at 40. There are a couple of people who are still riding ... ZARA PHILLIPS My dad's not a big talker. ZARA PHILLIPS My dad can be pretty critical sometimes. ZARA PHILLIPS I'd love to have kids, but not at the moment. ZARA PHILLIPS You cannot make horses 'safe.' ZARA PHILLIPS Virtually everything that gets printed about me is wrong anyway, so it doesn't really matter wha... ZARA PHILLIPS It's stupid to say that I don't like being in the public eye, but I don't like doing stu... ZARA PHILLIPS I'm an affectionate person. ZARA PHILLIPS People still text me to say that there is something about me in the paper, and what really annoys me... ZARA PHILLIPS Sometimes people will come up in the street and say: 'My daughter loves you, will you sign an au... ZARA PHILLIPS Taking part in an Olympics on home ground is something you dream about. ZARA PHILLIPS My brother and I have been able to get on and have been very lucky to do things with our family that... ZARA PHILLIPS I don't think about the media. ZARA PHILLIPS I love the sport and being competitive. ZARA PHILLIPS The horses are all characters, all personalities. Some you get along with, some you don't, some ... ZARA PHILLIPS I hate having my picture taken. ZARA PHILLIPS Unfortunately in sport it's either good or bad. You've got to take the highs and the lows. ZARA PHILLIPS My mother is massively into sailing, so we always had Musto clothes, and it went on from there, real... ZARA PHILLIPS The senior members of the royal family work very hard and I don't think people quite realise tha... ZARA PHILLIPS In our sport you're very lucky to find a horse of a lifetime and I found mine relatively early. ... ZARA PHILLIPS I don't have a stylist, and I do most of my shopping online, just because it's easier. I don... ZARA PHILLIPS I think Facebook's dangerous. So many people I know get into trouble with Facebook... I'd ra... ZARA PHILLIPS I'm not a princess anyway so I find that quite weird to be labelled as one. ZARA PHILLIPS Smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs. KING JAMES I My dear mamma is quite right when she says that we must lay down principles and not depart from them... MARIE ANTOINETTE I never make a trip to the United States without visiting a supermarket. To me they are more fascina... WALLIS SIMPSON PS: It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriends' bea... WALLIS SIMPSON I am so anxious for you not to abdicate and I think the fact that you do is going to put me in the w... WALLIS SIMPSON I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave. WALLIS SIMPSON I look a hundred and weigh 110 - you won't love me when you see the wreck England has made me. WALLIS SIMPSON A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compe... WALLIS SIMPSON Never explain, never complain. WALLIS SIMPSON You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance. WALLIS SIMPSON I have always had the courage for the new things that life sometimes offers. WALLIS SIMPSON For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat. WALLIS SIMPSON Forgive me for not writing but this man is exhausting. WALLIS SIMPSON You can never be too rich or too thin. WALLIS SIMPSON A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. KING SOLOMON It seems to me that man is made to act rather than to know: the principles of things escape our most... FREDERICK THE GREAT Addiction is a hugely complex and destructive disease, and its impact can be simply devastating. All... KATE MIDDLETON There is nothing new except what has been forgotten. MARIE ANTOINETTE I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all. MARIE ANTOINETTE I think change needs to be egoless. It's not about my leaving my fingerprints or a legacy. It... QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist. QUEEN VICTORIA I can make a lord, but only God can make a gentleman. KING JAMES I I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse. CHARLES V I feel very, very lucky that George has got a little sister. KATE MIDDLETON It would be doing me great injustice to think that I have any feeling of indifference to my country;... MARIE ANTOINETTE I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. AUGUSTUS A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in. FREDERICK THE GREAT Nothing is more useless in developing a nation's economy than a gun, and nothing blocks the road... HUSSEIN OF JORDAN It is necessary to try to pass one's self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life. QUEEN CHRISTINA There's nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing something. PRINCE CHARLES We shouldn't judge people through the prism of our own stereotypes. QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box. PRINCESS DIANA What must it be like for a little boy to read that daddy never loved mummy? PRINCESS DIANA The kindness and affection from the public have carried me through some of the most difficult period... PRINCESS DIANA People think that at the end of the day a man is the only answer. Actually, a fulfilling job is bett... PRINCESS DIANA
More Kazuo Ishiguro
There's something very misleading about the literary culture that looks at writers in their 30s ... KAZUO ISHIGURO When you become a parent, or a teacher, you turn into a manager of this whole system. You become the... KAZUO ISHIGURO It is sometimes said that butlers only truly exist in England. Other countries, whatever title is ac... KAZUO ISHIGURO It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see th... KAZUO ISHIGURO Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that.... KAZUO ISHIGURO Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it's a bit... KAZUO ISHIGURO Because maybe, in a way, we didn't leave it behind nearly as much as we might once have thought. Bec... KAZUO ISHIGURO There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one. KAZUO ISHIGURO She always wanted to believe in things. KAZUO ISHIGURO I do not think I responded immediately, for it took me a moment or two to fully digest these words o... KAZUO ISHIGURO What do you think dignity's all about?' The directness of the inquiry did, I admit, take ... KAZUO ISHIGURO Many of our deepest motives come, not from an adult logic of how things work in the world, but out o... KAZUO ISHIGURO We all live inside bodies that will deteriorate. But when you look at human beings, they're capa... KAZUO ISHIGURO There are things I am more interested in than the clone thing. How are they trying to find their pla... KAZUO ISHIGURO What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save... KAZUO ISHIGURO The world is crawling with authors touring now. They're like performance artists. KAZUO ISHIGURO I wouldn't want to try to adapt something of my own. It would be like going back to school and d... KAZUO ISHIGURO We always like to keep our children in a kind of bubble and censor the bad news about the world. We ... KAZUO ISHIGURO This is the big question that we all have about our children: How much, how soon, do we tell our chi... KAZUO ISHIGURO Everything might scatter. You might be right. I suppose it's something we can't easily get away from... KAZUO ISHIGURO I half closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childho... KAZUO ISHIGURO I had been plunged into a different world. I found myself spending half my time answering weird ques... KAZUO ISHIGURO I'm wondering if without our memories, there's nothing for it but for our love to fade and die. KAZUO ISHIGURO It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with... KAZUO ISHIGURO You say you’re sure ? Sure that you’re in love? How can you know it? You think love is so ... KAZUO ISHIGURO I want my words to survive translation. I know when I write a book now I will have to go and spend t... KAZUO ISHIGURO As I say, I have never in all these years thought of the matter in quite this way; but then it is pe... KAZUO ISHIGURO I do feel part of that generation of people who were rather idealistic in the '70s and became di... KAZUO ISHIGURO I've always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorot... KAZUO ISHIGURO I couldn't speak Japanese very well, passport regulations were changing, I felt British, and my ... KAZUO ISHIGURO Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memo... KAZUO ISHIGURO I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because i... KAZUO ISHIGURO Our family arrived in England in 1960. At that time I thought the war was ancient history. But if I ... KAZUO ISHIGURO I like the fact that by mimicking the way memory works, a writer can actually write in a fluid way -... KAZUO ISHIGURO When you're lucky enough to have a good film made of your novel - and 'Never Let Me Go' ... KAZUO ISHIGURO I'm not at all interested in the brave who fight against the odds and win. I am interested in th... KAZUO ISHIGURO Even though I spent the first five years of my life in Nagasaki, going to Japan can be really diffic... KAZUO ISHIGURO I was a little concerned that a lot of people thought I wrote Merchant Ivory movies. I also thought ... KAZUO ISHIGURO I loved cowboy films and TV series, and I learned bits of English from them. My favorite was 'La... KAZUO ISHIGURO People were incredibly kind to our family and went out of their way to help. KAZUO ISHIGURO There's a practical problem about time and energy, and a more subtle problem of what it does to a wr... KAZUO ISHIGURO It is a protected world. To some extent at least you have to shield children from what you know and ... KAZUO ISHIGURO Until then, I was knocking on doors. Afterward, my wife and I started to get a different kind of din... KAZUO ISHIGURO I went through my purple-prose phase in my songwriting... I was really writing between the lines. An... KAZUO ISHIGURO I went many years without even associating Nagasaki with the atomic bomb. Then in the 1980s, when th... KAZUO ISHIGURO I think the judging process is full of integrity, compared to some other prizes around the world. Th... KAZUO ISHIGURO I used to think when I was in my teens I was very different from my father, but now I see that what ... KAZUO ISHIGURO The book was at a reasonably high position on the New York Times... before I was in the country. I t... KAZUO ISHIGURO I work very regular hours, roughly 9 to 5:30. I think I have it much easier than a lot of parents. I... 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 mes... KAZUO ISHIGURO I couldn't speak Japanese very well, passport regulations were changing, I felt British, and my futu... KAZUO ISHIGURO As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually h... KAZUO ISHIGURO When you are young, things like your moral stance and your political position seem very important. I... KAZUO ISHIGURO What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. KAZUO ISHIGURO My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also... KAZUO ISHIGURO What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows ... KAZUO ISHIGURO Perhaps there are those who are able to go about their lives unfettered by such concerns. But for th... KAZUO ISHIGURO Its was one of those events which at a crucial stage in one's development arrive to challenge and st... KAZUO ISHIGURO There's something peculiar about writing fiction. It requires an interesting balance between see... KAZUO ISHIGURO Perhaps it is indeed time I began to look at this whole matter of bantering more enthusiastically. A... KAZUO ISHIGURO After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not... KAZUO ISHIGURO Indeed — why should I not admit it? — in that moment, my heart was breaking. KAZUO ISHIGURO The evening's the best part of the day. You've done your day's work. Now you can put your feet up an... KAZUO ISHIGURO All I know is that I've wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I'd get only ... KAZUO ISHIGURO And so we stood together like that, at the top of that field for what seemed like ages, not saying a... KAZUO ISHIGURO A few minutes later, he said suddenly: 'Kath, can we stop? I'm sorry, I need to get out a minute.' KAZUO ISHIGURO A part of us stayed like that: fearful of the world around us, and-no matter how much we despised ou... KAZUO ISHIGURO Your life must now run the course that's been set for it. KAZUO ISHIGURO We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enou... KAZUO ISHIGURO Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memo... KAZUO ISHIGURO That's most interesting. But I was no more a mind-reader then than today. I was weeping for an ... KAZUO ISHIGURO When we lost something precious, and we'd looked and looked and still couldn't find it, then we didn... KAZUO ISHIGURO You're always in a rush, or else you're too exhausted to have a proper conversation. Soon enough, th... KAZUO ISHIGURO Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans? KAZUO ISHIGURO I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses... KAZUO ISHIGURO Maybe from as early as when you're five or six, there's been a whisper going at the back of your hea... KAZUO ISHIGURO I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people ... KAZUO ISHIGURO The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you r... KAZUO ISHIGURO That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming a... KAZUO ISHIGURO All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma. KAZUO ISHIGURO You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their f... KAZUO ISHIGURO We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we di... KAZUO ISHIGURO I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people ... KAZUO ISHIGURO Now when I look back to the Guildford of that time, it seems far more exotic to me than Nagasaki. KAZUO ISHIGURO I don't have a deep link with England like, say, Jonathan Coe or Hanif Kureishi might demonstrat... KAZUO ISHIGURO What is the point of worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to contro... KAZUO ISHIGURO In any case, while it is all very well to talk of 'turning points', one can surely only recognise su... KAZUO ISHIGURO It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with... KAZUO ISHIGURO Some of you will have fine monuments by which the living may remember the evil done to you. Some of ... KAZUO ISHIGURO Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memo... KAZUO ISHIGURO Nagasaki is not just a few hazy images. I remember it as a real chunk of my life. KAZUO ISHIGURO People aren't quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They're not quite sure ... KAZUO ISHIGURO It was like there was some parallel universe we all vanished off to where we had all this sex. KAZUO ISHIGURO What he wanted was not just to hear about Hailsham, but to remember Hailsham, just like it had been ... KAZUO ISHIGURO But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment tur... KAZUO ISHIGURO If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heig... KAZUO ISHIGURO People aren't quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They're not qui... KAZUO ISHIGURO The truth is, Japan is headed for crisis. We are in the hands of greedy businessmen and weak politic... KAZUO ISHIGURO Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to w... KAZUO ISHIGURO I work very regular hours, roughly 9 to 5:30. I think I have it much easier than a lot of parents. I... KAZUO ISHIGURO It is essential, then, to keep one's attention focused on the present; to guard against any complace... KAZUO ISHIGURO Naturally—and why should I not admit this—I have occasionally wondered to myself how things migh... KAZUO ISHIGURO It is all very well, in these changing times, to adapt one's work to take in duties not traditionall... KAZUO ISHIGURO What is more, sir," his lordship went on, "I believe I have a good idea of what you mean by 'profess... KAZUO ISHIGURO The rest of my life stretches out as an emptiness before me. KAZUO ISHIGURO But this small episode is as good an illustration as any of the hazards of uttering witticisms. By t... KAZUO ISHIGURO But that doesn't mean to say, of course, there aren't occasions now and then - extremely desolate oc... KAZUO ISHIGURO Why, Mr Stevens, why, why, why do you always have to pretend? KAZUO ISHIGURO For a great many people, the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day. Perhaps, then, there is ... KAZUO ISHIGURO One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event. KAZUO ISHIGURO He chose a certain path in life, it proved to be a misguided one, but there, he chose it, he can say... KAZUO ISHIGURO But then, I suppose, when with the benefit of hindsight one begins to search one's past for such 'tu... KAZUO ISHIGURO I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in ... KAZUO ISHIGURO What can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out... KAZUO ISHIGURO You see, we were able to give you something, something which even now no one will ever take from you... KAZUO ISHIGURO You will agree that such is often the way with matters one has given abiding thought to over a perio... KAZUO ISHIGURO What I mean is, right from that first time, there was something in Tommy's manner that was ting... KAZUO ISHIGURO Too many people think only of their own profit. But business opportunity seldom knocks on the door o... KAZUO INAMORI In Japan there is a saying that . . . just seeing and hearing the form, the manners and the words ... KAZUO INAMORI Our goal is to reduce the costs of gasoline-hybrids, get a lot of people driving them, and then thin... KAZUO OKAMOTO I can't say when cars might run on lithium-ion batteries, but there's a very good chance they will b... KAZUO OKAMOTO In the future, the cars you see from Toyota will be 100 percent hybrid. KAZUO OKAMOTO We believe in 10 years' time the world will be filled with hybrid cars. KAZUO OKAMOTO Despite ballooning JGB issuance, Japanese financial institutions have ample appetite for JGB investm... KAZUO MIZUNO Further reforms mean tough political moves. But with a mandate like this, Koizumi has no excuse not ... KAZUO MIZUNO Projections for the next two months are good, and if things go as forecast, we'll be able to confirm... KAZUO MIZUNO I'm having difficulty trying to get a grasp of it. Today was an inside-the-parker. I can't believe i... KAZUO MATSUI Right now, I feel ready to go. KAZUO MATSUI I judged the ball too early because of the speed of the runner, ... I probably took my eye off the b... KAZUO MATSUI I always want to be prepared for the opportunity that is given to me. KAZUO MATSUI I can't really say if I can get it back, ... I just want to utilize the opportunities given to me. I... KAZUO MATSUI I'm hoping for its strong performance as the country's No. 1 player in charge of our air traffic. KAZUO KITAGAWA This is extremely regrettable and something that must never happen. KAZUO KITAGAWA There are numerous reasons why people have not moved out, but municipalities are working hard to vis... KAZUO KITAGAWA We hope to reach agreements on the direction of future policies and issue a message demonstrating ou... KAZUO KITAGAWA We want police to clarify the facts behind the scandal so it will not happen again. KAZUO KITAGAWA I wonder if we should be leaving driver qualification to train operators, KAZUO KITAGAWA It's tragic, ... We have to investigate why this horrible accident happened. KAZUO KITAGAWA We want to complete the greater Tokyo area's aviation setup. This will help us move toward that goal... KAZUO KITAGAWA Personally, I regret the visit. Aside from constitutional points, I am afraid that the visit might c... KAZUO KITAGAWA Perhaps the government needs to be more actively involved in driver qualification and training. KAZUO KITAGAWA The advancement of science and technology alone cannot make humanity happy. KAZUO INAMORI I think that is the opportunity that is given by this event. KAZUO INAMORI In Japan there is a saying that . . . just seeing and hearing the form, the manners and the words ... KAZUO INAMORI It comes from experience. The body knows how to learn. KAZUO HYODO It comes from experience. The body knows how to learn. Hear that? That sounds metallic, and you're s... KAZUO HYODO