We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
I was a little concerned that a lot of people thought I wrote Merchant Ivory movies. I also thought if I was ever going to write something strange and difficult, that was the time.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Kazuo Ishiguro reflects on the perception of his work and embraces the challenge of creating unconventional narratives.
In this quote, Kazuo Ishiguro expresses his awareness of the public's associations with his writing, particularly with the more straightforward, romantic Merchant Ivory films. He recognizes this perception as an opportunity to challenge himself creatively by exploring more intricate and unconventional themes, suggesting that the period in which people have a certain expectation of him is the perfect time to experiment and take artistic risks.
Themes
WritingArtCreativityRiskPerception
In practice
Example use cases
During a literary festival, discussing the importance of challenging creative norms.
More from Kazuo Ishiguro
All quotes →You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
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.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
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.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
If you were a boy and a girl and you were in love with each other, really, properly in love, and if you could show it, then the people who run Hailsham, they sorted it out for you. They sorted it out so you could have a few years together before you began your donations.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
We all live inside bodies that will deteriorate. But when you look at human beings, they're capable of very decent things: love, loyalty. When time is running out, they don't care about possessions or status. They want to put things right if they've done wrong.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
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The dimensions of a work of art are seldom realized by the author until the work is accomplished. It is like a flowering dream. Ideas grow, budding silently, and there are a thousand illuminations coming day by day as the work progresses. A seed grows in writing as in nature. The seed of the idea is developed by both labor and the unconscious, and the struggle that goes on between them.
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Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth.
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