There comes a point when you can more or less count the number of books you're going to write before you die.
Kazuo IshiguroAs a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.
Kazuo IshiguroMaybe all of us at Hailsam had little secrets like that -- little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone without fears and longing.
Kazuo IshiguroAs with a wound on one's own body, it is possible to develop an intimacy with the most disturbing of things
Kazuo IshiguroBut I really wanted to find it for you. And when it looked in the end like it wasn't going to turn up, I just said to myself, one day I'll go to Norfolk and I'll find it there for her.' 'The lost corner of England,' I said.
Kazuo IshiguroI still have a suspicion of charity and think the state has a role to play in many areas. And although for most of the years since I have been a rather privileged writer, I identify more closely than perhaps I should with those social workers. Had I not become a writer that would have been me. Lots of our friends are still in that world and 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.
Kazuo Ishiguro