Quote

If I'm alone at home, I get increasingly restless, bothered by the idea that I'm missing some crucial encounter out there somewhere. But if I'm left by myself in someone else's place, I often find myself a nice sense of peace engulfing me. I love sinking into an unfamiliar sofa with whatever book happens to be lying nearby.

Kazuo Ishiguro

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Kazuo Ishiguro
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: November 8
Author
Lyricist
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Songwriter
Writer
Ishiguro Kazuo
Sir Kazuo Ishiguro
Ideas
Often
Somewhere
Unfamiliar
Find
Sense
Missing
Sinking
Book
Left
Alone
Bothered
Love
Else
Nice
Restless
Place
Lying
Encounter
Engulfing
Happens
Whatever
Increasingly
Sofa
Someone
Peace
Encounters
Sofas
Home
Idea
Crucial
Nearby

More quotes by Kazuo Ishiguro

Image
I've always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
I realised, of course, that other people used these roads but that night, it seemed to me these dark byways of the country existed just for the likes of us, while the big glittering motorways with their huge signs and super cafes were for everyone else.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
You say you’re sure? Sure that you’re in love? How can you know it? You think love is so simple?
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans?
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
If you go to Tokyo, I think it becomes very obvious that there's this almost seamless mixture of popular culture and Japanese traditional culture.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
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
Image
Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
Throughout my career I've struggled to encourage people to read my books on a more metaphorical level. I'm less attached to my settings than, for example, Saul Bellow. The setting of a novel for me is just a part of the technique. I choose it at the end.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
Because maybe, in a way, we didn't leave it behind nearly as much as we might once have thought. Because somewhere underneath, a part of us stayed like that: fearful of the world around us, and no matter how much we despised ourselves for it--unable quite to let each other go.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
I couldn't speak Japanese very well, passport regulations were changing, I felt British and my future was in Britain. And it would also make me eligible for literary awards. But I still think I'm regarded as one of their own in Japan.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
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
Image
I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
The world is crawling with authors touring now. They're like performance artists.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
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
Image
I want my words to survive translation. I know when I write a book now I will have to go and spend three days being intensely interrogated by journalists in Denmark or wherever. That fact, I believe, informs the way I write - with those Danish journalists leaning over my shoulder.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Image
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
Image
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
Image
There was a time you saw me once, one afternoon, in the dormitories. There was no one else around, and I was playing this tape, this music. I was sort of dancing with my eyes closed and you saw me.' '...yes, I remember that occasion. I still think about it from time to time.' 'That's funny, so do I.
Kazuo Ishiguro