Never Let Me Go Quotes

“Don't try and ask them to thank you," Madame's voice said from behind us. "Why should they be grateful? They came here looking for something much more. What we gave them, all the years, all the fighting we did on their behalf, what do they know of that? They think it's God-given. Until they came here, they knew nothing of it. All they feel now is disappointment, because we haven't given them everything possible.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“They didn't want to think about you students, or about the conditions you were brought up in. In other words, my dears, they wanted you back in the shadows. Back in the shadows where you'd been before the likes of Marie-Claude and myself ever came along. And all those influential people who'd once been so keen to help us, well of course, they all vanished.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“People did their best not to think about you. And if they did, they tried to convince themselves you weren't really like us. That you were less than human, so it didn't matter.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“And for a long time, people preferred to belive these organs appeared from nowhere, or at most that they grew in a kind of vacuum, Yes, there were arugments, But by the time people became concerened about... about students, by the time they came to consider just how you were reared, whether you should have been brought into existence at all, well by then it was too late. How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days?”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“All you students, too. I did all the worrying and questioning for the lot of you. And as long as I was steadfast, then no doubts ever crossed your minds, any of you.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“But something was definitely gone, and they looked laboured, almost like they'd been coped. So that feeling came again, even though I tried to keep it out: that we were doing all of this too late; that there'd once been a time for it, but we'd let that go by, and there was something ridiculous, reprehensible even, about the way we were now thinking and planning.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“But even that first time, there was something there, a feeling, right alongside our sense that this was a beginning, a gateway we were passing through. I didn't want to acknowledge it for a long time, and even when I did, I tried to persuade myself it was something that would go away along with his various aches and pains. What I mean is, right from that first time, there was something in Tommy's manner that was tinged with sadness, that seemed to say: "Yes, we're doing this now and I'm glad we're doing this now. But what a pity we left it so late.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“When a donor completes like that, out of the blue, it doesn't make much of a difference what the nurses say to you afterwards, and neither does that letter saying how they're sure you did all you could and to keep up the good work.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“It was like being given a maths problem when your brain's exhausted, and you know there's some far-off solution, but you can't work up the energy even to give it a go.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“She did spot the tape in the end, much later, and it was probably a much worse time for her to find it, but that's the way your luck sometimes goes.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“We all know it. We're modelled from trash. Junkies, prostitutes, winos, tramps. That's what we come from. We all know it, so why don't we say it? A woman like that? Come on. Yeah, right Tommy. A bit of fun. Let's have a bit of fun pretending. That other woman in there, her friend, the old one in the gallery. Art students, that's what she thought we were. Do you think she'd have talked to us like that if she'd known what we really were? What do you think she'd have said if we'd asked her? 'Excuse me, but do you think your friend was ever a clone model?' She'd have thrown us out. We know it, so we might as well just say it. If you want to look for possibles, if you want to do it properly, then you look in the gutter. You look in rubbish bins. Look down the toilet, that's where you'll find where we all came from.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“A look had appeared in Tommy's eyes that made me catch my breath. It was one I hadn't seen for a long time and that belonged to the Tommy who'd had to be barricaded inside a classroom while he kicked over desks. Then the look faded, he turned to the sky outside and let out a heavy breath.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“I don't play it much because the music has nothing to do with anything. It's an object, like a brooch or a ring, and especially now Ruth has gone, it's become one of my most precious possessions.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“I saw how Ruth wasn't to know that- how to Ruth, who didn't know the first thing about music, this tape might easily make up for the one I'd lost. And suddenly I felt the disappointment ebbing away and being replaced by a real happiness.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“Now I saw how upset Ruth was; how for once she was at a complete loss for words, and had turned away on the verge of tears. And suddenly, my behavior seemed to me utterly baffling. All this effort, all this planning, just to upset my dearest friend. So what if she'd fibbed a little about her pencil case? Didn't we all dream from time to time about one guardian or another bending the rules and doing something special for us? A spontaneous hug, a special letter, a gift? All Ruth had done was to take one of these harmless daydreams a step further; she hadn't even mentioned Miss Geraldine by name. I now felt awful, and I was confused. But as we stood there together staring at the fog and rain, I could think of no way now to repair the damage I'd done.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“all the same, you felt dreadful, just knowing you'd fallen in her estimation, and you wanted to do something straight away to redeem yourself.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“And although we hadn't had any part in this latest plan to rile Tommy, we had taken out ringside seats, and we were starting to feel guilty. But there was no sign of a guardian, so we just kept swapping reasons why Tommy deserved everything he got.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“..so that maybe during those sleepless nights, with the drugs and the pain and the exhaustion, the line would blur between what were my memories and what were his. That was when I first understood, really understood, just how lucky we'd been- Tommy, Ruth, me, all the rest of us.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“She talked faster than she used to, and although she seemed pleased to see me, I sometimes got the impression it wouldn’t have mattered much if it wasn’t me, but someone else, so long as she got to talk.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“We’re modelled from trash.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“I want to move on now to our last years at Hailsham.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go