Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro OBE, FRSA, FRSLis a British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan; his family moved to England in 1960 when he was five. Ishiguro obtained his bachelor's degree from the University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative-writing course in 1980...
NationalityJapanese
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth8 November 1954
CountryJapan
bit extent people success worldly
I don't hang out with the glitteringly successful people; I hang out with people who've been friends for many years, and to some extent I feel my worldly success is a bit uncomfortable for them.
interesting novelists world
I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.
childhood world adults
Many of our deepest motives come, not from an adult logic of how things work in the world, but out of something that is frozen from childhood.
artist literature world
The world is crawling with authors touring now. They're like performance artists.
imagination world alive
I discovered that my imagination came alive when I moved away from the immediate world around me.
letting-go world might
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.
people feelings world
You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.
fathers quite teens
I used to think when I was in my teens I was very different from my father, but now I see that what we do is probably quite similar.
precious sad time unless
Unless you have a real sense of precious things under threat, there would be nothing sad about time being limited.
almost america audiences books commercial created expectation felt might move mysterious novel people remember rewritten seeing success three touring written
I felt I had almost written myself into a corner. You could say I'd rewritten the same novel three times and I thought I had to move on. The success of the book, and then the movie, had by then also created a commercial expectation and I remember touring America and seeing people in the audiences who I thought might not want to read the books I wanted to write next. My constituency had become broader, but more mysterious to me.
again carefully chart control dumped far happens less picked positions principles somewhere wind
While it is important to have principles, you have far less control of what happens. These principles and positions only get you so far, because what actually happens is that you don't carefully chart your way through life. You are picked up by a wind every now and again and dumped down somewhere else.
adult despised meaning moral nights opinions people political position positions professed seem spend stance
When you are young, things like your moral stance and your political position seem very important. I'd spend long nights with my friends sorting out moral and political positions that we thought would take us through adult life. And part of that would end up meaning we despised some people not for what they did, but for the opinions they professed to hold.
fate years long
Perhaps there are those who are able to go about their lives unfettered by such concerns. But for those like us, our fate is to face the world as orphans, chasing through long years the shadows of vanished parents. There is nothing for it but to try and see through our missions to the end, as best we can, for until we do so, we will be permitted no calm.
people forever advice
For a great many people, the evening is the most enjoyable part of the day. Perhaps, then, there is something to his advice that I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of what remains of my day. After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?