Kazuo Ishiguro quote: "I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened."

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

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 had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of 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

I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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