451 Quotes by Kazuo Ishiguro

Might as well tell you. In that shop we were in, they had this shelf with loads of records and tapes. So I was looking for the one you lost that time. Do you remember, Kath? I never told you at the time, but I tried really hard to find it. I remember looking for ages. 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.

And why shouldn’t they? Carers aren’t machines. You try and do your best for every donor, but in the end, it wears you down. You don’t have unlimited patience and energy. So when you get a chance to choose, of course, you choose your own kind. That’s natural. There’s no way I could have gone on for.

Mr Capaldi believed there was nothing special inside Josie that couldn’t be continued. He told the Mother he’d searched and searched and found nothing like that. But I believe now he was searching in the wrong place. There was something very special, but it wasn’t inside Josie. It was inside those who loved her.

Oji just happened to suggest he had one or two.

But however hard I tried, I believe now there would have remained something beyond my reach.

Maybe all of us at Hailsam had little secrets like that – little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone without fears and longing.

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.

It is essential, then, to keep one’s attention focused on the present; to guard against any complacency creeping in on account of what one may have achieved in the past.

There comes a point when you can more or less count the number of books you’re going to write before you die.