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" We all live inside bodies that will deteriorate. But when you look at human beings, they're capable of very decent things: love, loyalty. When time is running out, they don't care about possessions or status. They want to put things right if they've done wrong. "

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" 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

Dreams

Travel

Friends

" People were incredibly kind to our family and went out of their way to help. "

" I like the fact that by mimicking the way memory works, a writer can actually write in a fluid way - one solid scene doesn't have to fall on another solid scene, you can just have a fragment that then dovetails into another one that took place 30 years apart from it. "

Kazuo Ishiguro

Fall

You

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

" I do feel part of that generation of people who were rather idealistic in the '70s and became disillusioned in the '80s. Not just about social services issues, but the world. "

" As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened. "

Kazuo Ishiguro

People

Writer

" Now when I look back to the Guildford of that time, it seems far more exotic to me than Nagasaki. "

" I think jogging is bad for your health. All that pressure on the knees and back cannot be good for you. "

" There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one. "

Kazuo Ishiguro

Life

Had

" I loved cowboy films and TV series, and I learned bits of English from them. My favorite was 'Laramie', with Robert Fuller and John Smith. I used to watch 'The Lone Ranger', which had been famous in Japan as well. I idolized these cowboys. "

" I'm always trying to make something that is impossible to film. Why would somebody just read a novel when they can see it on TV or in the cinema? I really have to think of the things fiction can do that film can't and play to the strengths of the novel. With a novel, you can get right inside somebody's head. "

" People aren't quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They're not quite sure what is being recommended, what literary values it stands for, because every year it stands for something different. "

" I work very regular hours, roughly 9 to 5:30. I think I have it much easier than a lot of parents. I just sit at home, I have a very flexible timetable, and I'm very fortunate in that I don't have money problems. I have lunch with my wife at home. I don't have to commute, so I have much more time with my family. "

" What is difficult is the promotion, balancing the public side of a writer's life with the writing. I think that's something a lot of writers are having to face. Writers have become much more public now. "

" I wouldn't want to try to adapt something of my own. It would be like going back to school and doing all my exams again. "

" Our family arrived in England in 1960. At that time I thought the war was ancient history. But if I think of 15 years ago from now, that's 1990, and that seems like yesterday to me. "

" I've always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. "

" My wife is the most savage critic. She doesn't feel intimidated by my reputation. As far as she's concerned, she's just criticising a boyfriend who'd recently had a go at fiction. She can tell me to abandon whole novels. "

Kazuo Ishiguro

Wife

Feel

" I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs. "

Kazuo Ishiguro

Stories

Started

" When I write a novel, I want it to be completely different from a screenplay. I'm very conscious of the difference, and I want novels to work purely as novels. Otherwise I don't see how they'll survive - why don't we just all go to the movies or watch television. "

" The book was at a reasonably high position on the New York Times... before I was in the country. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if my presence here would push it up or down. "

" Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory. I like the atmospheres that result if episodes are narrated through the haze of memory. "

Kazuo Ishiguro

Writing

Result

" I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds. "

" I'm not at all interested in the brave who fight against the odds and win. I am interested in those who accept their lot, as that is what many people in the world are doing. They do their best in ghastly conditions. "

" I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of which I had thought about, some of which I had sort of stumbled on and many that I had no control over whatsoever. "

" I felt slightly superior to student politics, for instance. I had no reason to think this, but I thought of myself as slightly more seasoned. I became quite cynical talking to my student friends. "

" There are things I am more interested in than the clone thing. How are they trying to find their place in the world and make sense of their lives? To what extent can they transcend their fate? As time starts to run out, what are the things that really matter? "

" If you look at my last songs and first short stories, there is a real connection between them. "

" This is the big question that we all have about our children: How much, how soon, do we tell our children the less comfortable facts about the world they're going to inherit? "

" 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. "