Quotes from Kazuo Ishiguro

dignity' has to do crucially with a butler's ability not to abandon the professional being he inhabits.

But there is no virtue at all in clinging as some do to tradition merely for its own sake.

What is the point of worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one's life took?

Like you were sad, maybe. And a bit scared.

It's a great privilege, after all, to have been given a part to play, however small, on the world's stage.

Cabia a cada um de nós fazer o máximo da própria vida.

So that feeling came again, even though I tried to keep it out: that we were doing all of this too late; that there'd once been a time for it, but we'd let that go by, and there was something ridiculous, reprehensible even, about the way we were now thinking and planning.

Of course, it is tragic that so many of his generation died as they did, but why must he harbour such bitterness for his elders?

I could put down a scene from two days ago right beside one from twenty years earlier, and ask the reader to ponder the relationship between the two. Often the narrator himself would not need to know fully the deeper reasons for a particular juxtaposition. I could see a way of writing that could properly suggest the many layers of self-deception and denial that shrouded any person's view of their own self and past.

This circle of hate is hardly broken, sir, but forged instead in iron by what's done today.

Bir gün, belki de çok yak?nda, nas?l olduÄŸunu hissetmeye baÅŸlayacaks?n.

Belki de hiçbirimiz yaÅŸad?klar?m?z? tam olarak anlam?yor ve yeterli zaman?m?z kal?p kalmad???n? hissedemiyoruz.

Bir yerlerde bir ?rmak olduÄŸunu düÅŸünüp duruyorum. Sular? coÅŸkun bir ?rmak. Suyun içinde iki kiÅŸi var ve birbirlerine tutunmaya çal???yorlar, bütün güçleriyle uÄŸra??yorlar, ama sonunda dayanam?yorlar. Ak?nt? çok kuvvetli. Birbirlerini b?rakmak, ayr? yerlere sürüklenmek zorundalar. San?r?m bizim durumumuz da bu.

Her gün önünden geçtiÄŸiniz ayna bir gün aniden size bambaÅŸka bir ÅŸey,rahats?z edici ve tuhaf bir ÅŸey göstermiÅŸtir.

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.

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

Ama san?r?m, gerçek ÅŸu ki, o s?ralarda bizi birbirimizden ay?rmaya çal??an güçlü gelgitler vard? ve ayr?l???n tamamlanmas? için böyle bir ÅŸeyin olmas? gerekiyordu. Bunu o s?rada anlam?? olsayd?k - kim bilir? - belki birbirimize daha s?k? sar?l?rd?k.

and before I knew it, I was saying my goodbyes.

And when someone's asking you to do something in such a pleading way, everything goes against saying no. I

Your lives are set out for you. You'll become adults, then before you're old, before you're even middle-aged, you'll start to donate your vital organs. That's what each of you was created to do.

We may pray to different gods, yet surely yours will bless this dragon as does mine." Wistan

I keep thinking about this river . . . 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 is too strong. They've got to let go . . . It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But, in the end, we can't stay together forever.

Because whatever the song was really about, in my head, when I was dancing, I had my own version. You see, I imagined it was about this woman who'd been told she couldn't have babies. But then she'd had one, and she was so pleased, and she was holding it ever so tightly to her breast, really afraid something might separate them, and she's going baby, baby, never let me go.

I'm sure she barely knew the meaning of loneliness with you here.