Quotes from Kazuo Ishiguro

As far as I'm concerned, Miss Kenton, my vocation will not be fulfilled until I have done all I can to see his lordship through the great tasks he has set himself. The day his lordship's work is complete, the day he is able to rest on his laurels, content in the knowledge that he has done all anyone could ever reasonably ask of him, only on that day, Miss Kenton, will I be able to call myself, as you put it, a well-contented man.

But Ruth and Tommy never did anything gross in front of people, and if sometimes they cuddled or whatever, it felt like they were genuinely doing it for each other, not for an audience.

Sisters are supposed to be people you're close to, aren't they. You may not like them much, but you're still close to them.

Foolishness, sir. How can old wounds heal while maggots linger so richly? Or a peace hold for ever built on slaughter and a magician's trickery? I see how devoutly you wish it, for your old horrors to crumble as dust. Yet they await in the soil as white bones for men to uncover.

Perhaps they hadn't met for a long time. A long, long time. Perhaps when they last held each other like that, they were still young.' 'Do you mean, Manager, that they lost each other?' She was quiet for another moment. 'Yes,' she said, eventually. 'That must be it. They lost each other. And perhaps just now, just by chance, they found each other again.

Because you know how lousy it feels, people telling you how perfect things will be and they're not being straight.

They accept that your decisions, your recommendations, are sound and dependable, almost always correct. But they don't like not knowing how you arrive at them. That's where it comes from, this backlash, this prejudice.

Looking back now, it's funny to think we got so worked up, because usually the Sales were a big disappointment....But the point was, I suppose, we'd all of us in the past found something at a Sale, something that had become special...and so however much we tried to pretend otherwise, we couldn't ever shake off the old feelings of hope and excitement.

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.

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

For however one may come in later years to reassess one's achievements, it is always a consolation to know that one's life has contained a moment or two or real satisfaction

I was wondering, princess. Could it be our love would never have grown so strong down the years had the mist not robbed us the way it did? Perhaps it allowed old wounds to heal.

Abiding love that has endured the years—that we see only rarely. When we do, we're only too glad to ferry the couple together.

Be merciful and leave this place. Leave this country to rest in forgetfulness.

None of you will go to America, none of you will be film stars. And none of you will be working in supermarkets as I heard some of you planning the other day. 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.

One should not, in any case, attempt to make a virtue out of one's limitations.

I have this feeling, that all it will take will be one moment, even a tiny moment, provided it's the correct one. Like a cord suddenly snapping and a thick curtain dropping to the floor to reveal a whole new world, a world full of sunlight and warmth.

I really appreciated having the tape-and that song-back again. Even then, it was mainly a nostalgia thing, and today, if I happen to get the tape out and look at it, it brings back memories of that afternoon in Norfolk every bit as much as it does our Hailsham days.

Leave us, you were always on the outside of our love.

Perhaps it is indeed time I began to look at this whole matter of bantering more enthusiastically.

But then I behaved badly towards myself, towards everybody. You mustn't feel singled out. My awfulness was universally distributed.

so that maybe during those sleepless nights, with the drugs and the pain and the exhaustion, the line would blur between what were my memories and what were his.

I wish I could go out and walk and run and skateboard and swim in lakes. But I can't because my mother has Courage. So instead I get to stay in bed and be sick. I'm glad about this. I really am.

Revolution? Really, Ono! The communists want a revolution. We want nothing of the sort. Quite the opposite, in fact. We wish for a restoration.