A sixty year old Japanese man was rescued from a piece of floating roof after two days. He told the rescuers that he had lost his wife.
The watchman once got to know someone through sharing the same interest of reading books written by Kazuo Ishiguro . Here are some quotes from Kazuo Ishiguro. The excerpts are from “Never let me go” (2005) and “The remains of the day” (winner of the Booker Prize, 1989)
Quotes_____________
“
I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart. That’s how it is with us. It’s a shame, Kath, because we’ve loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can’t stay together forever.” (Never Let me go)
”Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.”
“
You say you’re sure? Sure that you’re in love? How can you know it? You think love is so simple? “
“
The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it.”
“Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it’s a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust.”
“
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? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services.
What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.” (The remains of the day)
“It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed.”
“Indeed — why should I not admit it? — in that moment, my heart was breaking.”
“…and I half closed my eyes and imagined
this was the spot where everything I’d ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field and gradually get larger until I’d see it was Tommy, and he’d wave, and maybe even call.” (Never Let me go)
“Your life must now run the course that’s been set for it.”
“Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory…”
“
When we lost something precious, and we’d looked and looked and still couldn’t find it, then we didn’t have to be completely heartbroken. We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day, when we grow up, and we were free to travel around the counry,
we would always go and find it in Norfolk…And that’s why years and years later, that day Tommy and I found another copy of that lost tape of mine in a town on the Norfolk coast, we didn’t just think it pretty funny; we both felt deep down some tug, some old wish to believe again in something that was once close to our hearts.”
“The problem, as I see it, is that you’ve been told and not told. You’ve been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way.”
“There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.”
“As a writer,
I’m more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened”
“
You’re always in a rush, or else you’re too exhausted to have a proper conversation. Soon enough, the long hours, the traveling, the broken sleep have all crept into your being and become part of you, so everyone can see it, in your posture, your gaze, the way you move and talk.” (
Don’t we all?)
