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Top Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

Browse top 107 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Favorite Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

1. "I half closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, and maybe even call." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
2. "But what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened had such and such a moment turned out differently? One could presumably drive oneself to distraction in this way. In any case, while it is all very well to talk of 'turning points', one can surely only recognize such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one's life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one's relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
3. "What I wished more than anything was that the thing hadn't happened at all, and I thought that by not mentioning it I'd be doing everyone else a favor." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
4. "I quizzed him a lot on this point and i suspect the truth was that it was like a lot of things at that age: you don't have any clear reason, you just do it. You do it because you think it might get a laugh, or because you want to see if it'll cause a stir. And when you're asked to explain afterwards, it doesn't seem to make any sense." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
5. "After all, when we were children, when things went wrong, there wasn't much we could do to help put it right. But now we're adults, now we can. That's the thing, you see? Look at us, Akira. After all this time, we can finally put things right. Remember, old chap, how we used to play those games? Over and over? How we used to pretend we were detectives searching for my father? Now we're grown, we can at last put things right." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
6. "It didn't hurt, did it? When I hit you?" "Sure. Fractured skull. Concussion, the lot..." "But seriously, Kath. No hard feelings, right? I'm awfully sorry. I honestly am." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
7. "Even at the time, I realised this couldn't be right, that this interpretation didn't fit with the rest of the lyrics. But that wasn't an issue with me. The song was about what I said, and I used to listen to it again and again, on my own, whenever I got the chance." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
8. "But I really wanted to find it for you. And when it looked in the end like it wasn't going to turn up, I just said to myself, one day I'll go to Norfolk and I'll find it there for her.''The lost corner of England,' I said." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
9. "In fact, the harder he tried, the more laughable his efforts turned out." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
10. "Plenty of couples, they start off loving each other, then get tired of each other, end up hating each other. Sometimes though it goes the other way." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
11. "The colonel nodded. "Our childhood seems so far away now. All this" - he gestured out of the vehicle - "so much suffering. One of our Japanese poets, a court lady many years ago, wrote how sad this was. She wrote of how our childhood becomes like a foreign land once we have grown.""Well, Colonel, it's hardly a foreign land to me. In many ways, it's where I've continued to live all my life. It's only now I've started to make my journey from it." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
12. "For their kind do not know what it is to risk everything in the endeavor to rise above the mediocre." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
13. "You'll figure it out! You get on your plane and I'll get on mine. And we'll see which one crashes!" ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
14. "And there was a tree stump outside the Black Barn everyone called 'Dave's stump' because for over three years, until a few weeks before our arrival, he'd sat on it to read and write, sometimes even when it was raining or cold." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
15. "All you decent, well-meaning gentlemen, let me ask you, have you any idea what sort of place the world is becoming all around you? The days when you could act out of your noble instincts are over. Except of course, you here in Europe don't yet seem to know it." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
16. "Sie warten also, wenn auch unbewusst, auf den Augenblick, in dem Sie erkennen, dass Sie tatsächlich anders sind; dass dort draußen Menschen sind wie Madame, die ihnen weder Übles wollen noch Hass gegen Sie empfinden, und doch schon beim Gedanken an Ihre Existenz, an die Art und Weise, wie Sie zur Welt kamen, erschaudern und sich vor der Vorstellung fürchten, sie könnten von Ihnen berührt werden. Wenn Sie sich das erste Mal mit den Augen einer solchen Person sehen, wird Ihnen kalt ums Herz. Es ist, als sähen Sie einen Spiegel, an dem Sie jeden Tag Ihres Lebens vorbeigegangen sind, und auf einmal zeigt er Ihnen etwas anderes, etwas Fremdes, Verstörendes." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
17. "If disappointments do come, you will carry on still. You will say, just as he does, I am so lucky." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
18. "I suppose I do not on the whole greatly admire the 'Tortoises' of this world. While one may appreciate their plodding steadiness and ability to survive, one suspects their lack of frankness, their capacity for treachery. And I suppose, in the end, one despises their unwillingness to take chances in the name of ambition or for the sake of a principle they claim to believe in." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
19. "Fece una risata e mi circondò con un braccio, mentre rimanevamo seduti l'uno accanto all'altra. Poi aggiunse: "Continuo a pensare a un fiume da qualche parte là fuori, con l'acqua che scorre velocissima. E quelle due persone nell'acqua, che cercano di tenersi strette, più che possono, ma alla fine devono desistere. La corrente è troppo forte. Devono mollare, separarsi. E' la stessa cosa per noi. E' un peccato, Kath, perché ci siamo amati per tutta la vita. Ma alla fine non possiamo rimanere insieme per sempre."" ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
20. "What's going on here, Tommy? Has Keffers recruited you for his porn patrol?" ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
21. "Mindig az jár a fejemben, hogy van valahol egy folyó, aminek nagyon gyors a sodrása. És ott a vízben az a két ember, és kapaszkodnak egymásba, kapaszkodnak, ahogy csak tudnak, de végül nem bírják tovább. Túlságosan eros az áramlat. El kell engedniük egymást, és elsodródnak egymástól. Úgy érzem, hogy velünk is ez a helyzet. Igazán kár, Kath, mert egész életünkben szerettük egymást. Mégsem maradhatunk együtt örökre." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
22. "Khi ta dánh m?t m?t cái gì dó quý báu r?i c? tìm hoài tìm mãi mà không th?y, ta cung không c?n ph?i quá dau kh?. Ta v?n còn chút an ?i cu?i cùng kia, khi nghi r?ng m?t ngày nào dó, khi ta l?n lên và có th? t? do di kh?p nu?c, ta s? luôn luôn có th? tìm l?i nó ? Norfolk." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
23. "Dinner will be served at the usual time and I am pleased to say there will be no discernible traces left of the recent occurrence by that time." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
24. "I felt slightl 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
25. "Now naturally, like many of us, I have a reluctance to change too much of the old ways." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
26. "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
27. "What is more, sir," his lordship went on, "I believe I have a good idea of what you mean by 'professionalism.' It appears to mean getting one's way by cheating and manipulating. It appears to mean serving the dictates of greed and advantage rather than those of goodness and the desire to see justice prevail in the world. If that is the 'professionalism' you refer to, sir, I don't care much for it and have no wish to acquire it." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
28. "The evening's the best part of the day. You've done your day's work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
29. "The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
30. "Nos-tal-gic,' Akira said, as though it were a word he had been struggling to find. Then he said a word in Japanese, perhaps the Japanese for ‘nostalgic.' ‘Nos-tal-gic. It is good to be nos-tal-gic. Very important.'‘Really, old fellow?'‘Important. Very important. Nostalgic. When we nostalgic, we remember. A world better than this world we discover when we grow. We remember and wish good world come back again. So very important. Just now, I had dream. I was boy. Mother, Father, close to me. in our house.'He fell silent and continued to gaze across the rubble.‘Akira,' I said, sensing that the longer this talk went on, the greater was some danger I did not wish fully to articulate. ‘We should move on. We have much to do." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
31. "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
32. "That was the only time, as I stood there, looking at that strange rubbish, feeling the wind coming across those empty fields, that I started to imagine just a little fantasy thing, because this was Norfolk after all, and it was only a couple of weeks since I'd lost him. I was thinking about the rubbish, the flapping plastic in the branches, the shore-line of odd stuff caught along the fencing, and I half-closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I'd ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I'd see it was Tommy, and he'd wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that --I didn't let it-- and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn't sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
33. "You say you're sure? Sure that you're in love? How can you know it? You think love is so simple?" ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
34. "If one has failed only where others have not had the courage or will to try, there is a consolation – indeed, a deep satisfaction – to be gained from this observation when looking back over one's life." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
35. "I wouldn't want to try to adapt something of my own. It would be like going back to school and doing all my exams again." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
36. "I don't have a deep link with England like, say, Jonathan Coe or Hanif Kureishi might demonstrate. For me, it is like a mythical place." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
37. "Now when I look back to the Guildford of that time, it seems far more exotic to me than Nagasaki." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
38. "I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
39. "The world is crawling with authors touring now. They're like performance artists." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
40. "I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?" ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
41. "As with a wound on one's own body, it is possible to develop an intimacy with the most disturbing of things" ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
42. "And if these incidents now seem full of significance and all of a piece, it's probably because I'm looking at them in the light of what came later..." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
43. "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." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
44. "It was like being given a maths problem when your brain's exhausted, and you know there's some far-off solution, but you can't work up the energy even to give it a go. Something in me just gave up." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
45. "A man who aspires to rise above the mediocre, to be something more than the ordinary, surely deserves admiration, even if he fails and loses a fortune on account of his ambitions(...)if one has failed only where others have not had the courage or will to try, there is consolation - indeed, deep satisfaction - to be gained from his observation when looking back over one's life.#Page no.134" ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
46. "It was like there was some parallel universe we all vanished off to where we had all this sex." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
47. "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 collapse. And everything scatter, as you put it." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
48. "Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won't be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It'll be because people have changed. They'll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It's healthy." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
49. "You see, because [Norfolk is] stuck out here on the east, on this hump jutting into the sea, it's not on the way to anywhere. People going north and south, they bypass it altogether. For that reason, it's a peaceful corner of England, rather nice. But it's also something of a lost corner.'Someone claimed after the lesson that Miss Emily had said Norfolk was England's 'lost corner' because that was were all the lost property found in the country ended up.Ruth said one evening, looking out at the sunset, that 'when we lost something precious, and we'd looked and looked and still couldn't find it, then we didn't have to be completely heartbroken. We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day, when we were grown up, and we were free to travel the country, we could always go and find it again in Norfolk." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
50. "...we have the satisfaction of knowing that whatever we did, we did at the time in the best of faith. Of course, we took some bold steps and often did things with much single-mindedness; but this is surely preferable to never putting one's convictions to the test, for lack of will or courage." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
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I really can't complain about actresses who get paid to be dumb. Most of us can't get paid to be smart."
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Thin
Hen
Here
Ear
Per
Wit
Ally
Thou
Use
End
Though
King
Ours
Tan
Hey
Con
Old
She
Act
Los
May
Lit
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Son
Pen
Able
Self
Might
Lie
Cause
Quit
Quite
Ought
Yes
Ways
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Maybe
Ring
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Said
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Off
Sat
Sure
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