Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

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Kazuo Ishiguro

Profession : Author

Birth : November 8, 1954

I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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.

Kazuo Ishiguro

When I was younger, I didn't read that much. I was more interested in film and music. Now I'm curious. I want to know what it's all about.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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.

Kazuo Ishiguro

I try to always go for something... very interior, following thoughts and memories, something that I think is difficult to do on the screen, which is essentially a third-person medium.

Kazuo Ishiguro

When I see films made from books, I make a huge effort not to remember the book. It's important to see the film as a film.

Kazuo Ishiguro

There's something peculiar about writing fiction. It requires an interesting balance between seeing the world as a child and having the wisdom of a middle-aged person. The further you get from childhood and the experience of the teenage years, the greater the danger of losing that wellspring.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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

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

Kazuo Ishiguro

To some extent, at least, you have to shield children from what you know and drip-feed information to them. Sometimes that is kindly meant, and sometimes not.

Kazuo Ishiguro

I want my words to survive translation.

Kazuo Ishiguro

I don't have a deep link with England like, say, Jonathan Coe or Hanif Kureishi might demonstrate. For me, it is like a mythical place.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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

Kazuo Ishiguro

There's something very misleading about the literary culture that looks at writers in their 30s and calls them 'budding' or 'promising', when in fact they're peaking.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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.

Kazuo Ishiguro

Even though I spent the first five years of my life in Nagasaki, going to Japan can be really difficult. Even if they know I've been brought up in the West, they still expect me to understand all the subtleties of their culture, and if I get it wrong, it matters much more than if a British person gets it wrong. I find it intimidating.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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.

Kazuo Ishiguro

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?

Kazuo Ishiguro