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I Took One Glance At Her In That Hospital Bed Under The Dull Light And Recognised The Look On Her Face, Which I'd Seen On Donors Often Enough Before. It Was Like She Was Willing Her Eyes To See Right Inside Herself, So She Could Patrol And Marshal All The Better The Separate Areas Of Pain In Her Body.

-Kazuo Ishiguro

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I Took One Glance

Kazuo Ishiguro

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I Took One Glance At Her In That Hospital Bed Under The Dull Light And Recognised The Look On Her Face, Which I'd Seen On Donors Often Enough Before. It Was Like She Was Willing Her Eyes To See Right Inside Herself, So She Could Patrol And Marshal All The Better The Separate Areas Of Pain In Her Body.

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I Took One Glance At Her In That Hospital Bed Under The Dull Light And Recognised The Look On Her Face, Which I'd Seen On Donors Often Enough Before. It Was Like She Was Willing Her Eyes To See Right Inside Herself, So She Could Patrol And Marshal All The Better The Separate Areas Of Pain In Her Body.

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Memory Is Quite Central For Me. Part Of It Is That I Like The Actual Texture Of Writing Through Memory.

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I Think I Had Actually Served My Apprenticeship As A Writer Of Fiction By Writing All Those Songs. I Had Already Been Through Phases Of Autobiographical Or Experimental Stuff.

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I Spent Ages Figuring Out Things Like Viewpoint, How You Tell The Story, And So On.

I Think Of My Pile Of Old Paperbacks, Their Pages Gone Wobbly, Like They'd Once Belonged To The Sea.

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One Need Hardly Dwell On The Catastrophic Possibility Of Uttering A Bantering Remark Only To Discover It Wholly Inappropriate

Even At The Time, I Realised This Couldn't Be Right, That This Interpretation Didn't Fit With The Rest Of The Lyrics. But That Wasn't An Issue With Me. The Song Was About What I Said, And I Used To Listen To It Again And Again, On My Own, Whenever I Got The Chance.

For A Great Many People, The Evening Is The Most Enjoyable Part Of The Day. Perhaps, Then, There Is Something To His Advice That I Should Cease Looking Back So Much, That I Should Adopt A More Positive Outlook And Try To Make The Best Of What Remains Of My Day. After All, 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 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, I Realize, Can Be An Unreliable Thing; Often It Is Heavily Coloured By The Circumstances In Which One Remembers.

What Interests Me Is The Surprising Enormous Extent To Which Most People Accept The Fate That's Been Given To Them, And Find Some Dignity.

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.

And So We Stood Together Like That, At The Top Of That Field For What Seemed Like Ages, Not Saying Anything, Just Holding Each Other, While The Wind Kept Blowing And Blowing At Us, Tugging Our Clothes, And For A Moment, It Seemed Like We Were Holding Onto Each Other Because That Was The Only Way To Stop Us From Being Swept Away Into The Night.

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.

What I Wished More Than Anything Was That The Thing Hadn't Happened At All, And I Thought That By Not Mentioning It I'd Be Doing Everyone Else A Favor.

It Was Like When You Make A Move In Chess And Just As You Take Your Finger Off The Piece, You See The Mistake You've Made, And There's This Panic Because You Don't Know Yet The Scale Of Disaster You've Left Yourself Open To.

I'm Interested In Memory Because It's A Filter Through Which We See Our Lives, And Because It's Foggy And Obscure, The Opportunities For Self-deception Are There. In The End, As A Writer, I'm More Interested In What People Tell Themselves Happened Rather Than What Actually Happened.

All You Decent, Well-meaning Gentlemen, Let Me Ask You, Have You Any Idea What Sort Of Place The World Is Becoming All Around You? The Days When You Could Act Out Of Your Noble Instincts Are Over. Except Of Course, You Here In Europe Don't Yet Seem To Know It.

What I'm Not Sure About, Is If Our Lives Have Been So Different From The Lives Of The People We Save. We All Complete. Maybe None Of Us Really Understand What We've Lived Through, Or Feel We've Had Enough Time.

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.

I Couldn't Speak Japanese Very Well, Passport Regulations Were Changing, I Felt British And My Future Was In Britain. And It Would Also Make Me Eligible For Literary Awards. But I Still Think I'm Regarded As One Of Their Own In Japan.

I Can See,’ Miss Emily Said, ‘that It Might Look As Though You Were Simply Pawns In A Game. It Can Certainly Be Looked At Like That. But Think Of It. You Were Lucky Pawns. There Was A Certain Climate And Now It’s Gone. You Have To Accept That Sometimes That’s How Things Happen In The World. People’s Opinions, Their Feelings, They Go One Way, Then The Other. It Just So Happens You Grew Up At A Certain Point In This Process.’ ‘it Might Be Just Some Trend That Came And Went,’ I Said. ‘but For Us, It’s Our Life.

All Children Have To Be Deceived If They Are To Grow Up Without Trauma.

I Was Very Young When I Prepared Those Prints. I Suspect The Reason I Couldn't Celebrate The Floating World Was That I Couldn't Bring Myself To Believe In Its Worth. Young Men Are Often Guilt-ridden About Pleasure, And I Suppose I Was No Different. I Suppose I Thought That To Pass Away One's Time In Such Places, To Spend One's Skills Celebrating Things So Intangible And Transient, I Suppose I Thought It All Rather Wasteful, All Rather Decadent. It's Hard To Appreciate The Beauty Of A World When One Doubts Its Very Validity

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.

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.

To See The Best Before I Have Properly Begun Would Be Somewhat Premature.

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.

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If I'm Alone At Home, I Get Increasingly Restless, Bothered By The Idea That I'm Missing Some Crucial Encounter Out There Somewhere. But If I'm Left By Myself In Someone Else's Place, I Often Find Myself A Nice Sense Of Peace Engulfing Me. I Love Sinking Into An Unfamiliar Sofa With Whatever Book Happens To Be Lying Nearby.

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.

…it’s Hard To Appreciate The Beauty Of A World When One Doubts Its Very Validity….but I’ve Long Since Lost All Such Doubts, Ono,’ He Continued. ‘when I Am An Old Man, When I Look Back Over My Life And See I Have Devoted It To The Task Of Capturing The Unique Beauty Of That World, I Believe I Will Be Well Satisfied. And No Man Will Make Me Believe I’ve Wasted My Time.

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 Cannot Start A Story Or Chapter Without Knowing How It Ends. ... Of Course, It Rarely Ends That Way.

It Didn't Hurt, Did It? When I Hit You?" "sure. Fractured Skull. Concussion, The Lot..." "but Seriously, Kath. No Hard Feelings, Right? I'm Awfully Sorry. I Honestly Am.

It Is All Very Well, In These Changing Times, To Adapt One's Work To Take In Duties Not Traditionally Within One's Realm; But Bantering Is Of Another Dimension Altogether. For One Thing, How Would One Know For Sure That At Any Given Moment A Response Of The Bantering Sort Is Truly What Is Expected? One Need Hardly Dwell On The Catastrophic Possibility Of Uttering A Bantering Remark Only To Discover It Wholly Inappropriate.

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Bret Easton Ellis

Mahalia Jackson

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