Latest Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes from Interviews

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• Typically in my novels the narrator tells a story by remembering, and the memories are colored by this and colored by that. So the whole universe of the novel tends to be framed by the narrator's memories and thoughts.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Memories, Remember, Framed

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I actually dislike, more than many people, working through literary allusion. I just feel that there's something a bit snobbish or elitist about that. I don't like it as a reader, when I'm reading something. It's not just the elitism of it; it jolts me out of the mode in which I'm reading. I've immersed myself in the world and then when the light goes on I'm supposed to be making some kind of literary comparison to another text. I find I'm pulled out of my kind of fictional world, I'm asked to use my brain in a different kind of way. I don't like that.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Reading, People, Brain

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I don't really like to work with literary allusions very much. I never want to be in a position where I'm saying, "You've got to read a lot of other stuff" or "You've got to have had a good education in literature to fully appreciate what I'm doing."

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Appreciate, Literature, Good Education

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• The reason I wouldn't dare to write a Western is simply because that seems to be so much a part of American culture. Maybe if I want to write a Western enough I should try to overcome that fear, but I'll certainly feel like I'm trespassing. I feel that that is so much a part of American foundation myth, it's part of the myth of America, the American vision of what America is, which people have glorified and then challenged and then vilified.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Writing, People, Vision

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• 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

  Thinking, Culture, Mixtures

  "I Remain Fascinated by Memory". Interview with Michael Scott Moore and Michael Sontheimer, www.spiegel.de. October 5, 2005.

• I find Japanese books quite baffling when I read them in translation. It's only with Haruki Murakami that I find Japanse fiction that I can understand and relate to. He's a very international writer.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Book, Fiction, Relate

  Source: www.spiegel.de

• 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

  Book, Careers, People

  "I Remain Fascinated by Memory". Interview with Michael Scott Moore and Michael Sontheimer, www.spiegel.de. October 5, 2005.

• I grew up in Britain before it became a multicultural place, so in many ways I have a nostalgia for an England that's vanished - the England of my childhood has actually disappeared.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Childhood, Way, England

  "I Remain Fascinated by Memory". Interview with Michael Scott Moore and Michael Sontheimer, www.spiegel.de. October 5, 2005.

• Every country should have a strong literary tradition of its own at the center, but it should also have an interest in other countries.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Country, Strong, Should Have

  "I Remain Fascinated by Memory". Interview with Michael Scott Moore and Michael Sontheimer, www.spiegel.de. October 5, 2005.

• I think it's quite difficult to understand what kind of life a writer leads. They might be millionaires, or they might be starving people.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Thinking, People, Might

  "I Remain Fascinated by Memory". Interview with Michael Scott Moore and Michael Sontheimer, www.spiegel.de. October 5, 2005.

• I think there is a huge difference between writers who have very big sales, and writers who have small sales. Even writers with very high reputations, even Nobel prize winners, often sell in very low figures.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Thinking, Differences, Reputation

  Source: www.spiegel.de