Quotessence
Home / Authors / Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllThinkingIfsPeopleNever Let Me GoWorldLiteratureMightYearsKnowsWayBookWritingTryingDignityEnoughLoveWantLet Me GoLooksMemories

Famous Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

“The reason I wouldn't dare to write a Western is simply because that seems to be so much a part of American culture. Maybe if I want to write a Western enough I should try to overcome that fear, but I'll certainly feel like I'm trespassing. I feel that that is so much a part of American foundation myth, it's part of the myth of America, the American vision of what America is, which people have glorified and then challenged and then vilified.”

PeopleWritingTryingReasonEnoughCultureVisionOvercomingWesternDareMythAmerican Culture
Author:Kazuo Ishiguro
Create image

“I actually dislike, more than many people, working through literary allusion. I just feel that there's something a bit snobbish or elitist about that. I don't like it as a reader, when I'm reading something. It's not just the elitism of it; it jolts me out of the mode in which I'm reading. I've immersed myself in the world and then when the light goes on I'm supposed to be making some kind of literary comparison to another text. I find I'm pulled out of my kind of fictional world, I'm asked to use my brain in a different kind of way. I don't like that.”

PeopleWorldKindDifferentReadingBrainComparisonDislikeDifferent KindsElitistElitismAllusion
Author:Kazuo Ishiguro
Create image

“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever.”

PeopleThinkingLoveTryingTwoEndsHardTogetherMovingStrongWaterForeverToo MuchOur LivesLetting GoRiversShameCurrentsHolding OnLet Me GoTogether ForeverNever Let Me Go
Author:Kazuo Ishiguro
Create image

“If you were a boy and a girl and you were in love with each other, really, properly in love, and if you could show it, then the people who run Hailsham, they sorted it out for you. They sorted it out so you could have a few years together before you began your donations.”

PeopleIfsYearsShowsRunningTogetherGirlBoysDonationNever Let Me GoYears Together
Book:Never Let Me Go: With GCSE and A Level study guide
Create image

“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 sometimes that’s how things happen in the world. People’s opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.’ ‘It might be just some trend that came and went,’ I said. ‘But for us, it’s our life.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayLooksSaidI CanSometimesFeelingsMightHappensCertainGamesProcessAcceptingOpinionGoneOur LivesMissingGrewLuckyGrew UpClimateThings HappenOne WayTrendsEmilyPawns
Book:Never Let Me Go
Create image

“For a great many people, the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day. Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. 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?”

PeopleIfsShouldTryingMightForeverOur LivesAdviceGainsBlameRemainsCeaseEveningGreat MenLooking BackOutlookPositive OutlookEnjoyable
Book:The Remains of the Day
Create image

“I still have a suspicion of charity and think the state has a role to play in many areas. And although for most of the years since I have been a rather privileged writer, I identify more closely than perhaps I should with those social workers. Had I not become a writer that would have been me. Lots of our friends are still in that world and I do feel part of that generation of people who were rather idealistic in the 70s and became disillusioned in the 80s. Not just about social services issues, but the world.”

PeopleThinkingWorldFeelsShouldYearsHas BeensStillsStatesPlaySocialRolesIssuesGenerationsAreasCharityWorkersSuspicionPrivileged80sSocial WorkerIdealisticDisillusionedSocial Service
Author:Kazuo Ishiguro
Create image

“You could say I'd rewritten the same novel three times and I thought I had to move on. The success of the book, and then the movie, had by then also created a commercial expectation and I remember touring America and seeing people in the audiences who I thought might not want to read the books I wanted to write next. My constituency had become broader, but more mysterious to me.”

PeopleWantWritingBookMightWantedAmericaRememberMovingThreeNextNovelAudienceSeeingExpectationsMysteriousThree TimesTouring
Author:Kazuo Ishiguro
Create image