The Unconsoled Quotes

“Silence is just as likely to indicate the most profound ideas forming, the deepest energies being summoned.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“Your wound, your silly little wound! That's your real love, Leo, that wound, the one true love of your life! I know how it will be, even if we tried, even if we managed to build something all over again. The music too, that would be no different. Even if they'd accepted you tonight, even if you became celebrated in this town, you'd destroy it all, you'd destroy everything, pull it all down around you just as you did before. And all because of that wound. Me, the music, we're neither of us anything more to you than mistresses
you seek consolation from. You'll always go back to your one real love. To that wound! And you know what makes me so angry? Leo, are you listening to me? Your wound, it's nothing special, nothing special at all. In this town alone, I know there are many people with far worse. And yet they carry on, every one of them, with far greater courage than you ever did. They go on with their lives. They become something worthwhile. But you, Leo, look at you. Always tending your wound.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“It's nonsense to believe people go on loving each other regardless of what happens.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“I have this feeling, that all it will take will be one moment, even a tiny moment, provided it’s the correct one. Like a cord suddenly snapping and a thick curtain dropping to the floor to reveal a whole new world, a world full of sunlight and warmth.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“One should not, in any case, attempt to make a virtue out of one's limitations.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“Leave us, you were always on the outside of our love.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“It had occurred to me to follow her through into the next room, visitors or no visitors, and bring her back for a talk. But in the end I had decided in favour of waiting where I was for her return. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Sophie had come back into the room, but something in her manner had prevented me from speaking and she had gone out again. In fact, although during the following half-hour Sophie had entered and left the room several more times, for all my resolve to make my feelings known to her, I had returned to my newspaper with a strong sense of hurt and frustration.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“Left alone, I must quickly have drifted off into my own thoughts, for I did not notice the barman return. He must have done so, however, for I was soon drinking coffee, staring at the mirrored wall behind the bar - in which I could see not only my own reflection but much of the room behind me. After a while, for some reason, i found myself replaying in my head key moments from a football match I had attended many years earlier - an encounter between Germany and Holland. I adjusted my posture on the high-stool - I could see I was hunching excessively - and tried recalling the names of the players in the Dutch team that year. Rep, Krol, Haan, Neeskens. After several minutes I had succeeded in remembering all but two of the players, but these last two names remained just beyond the rim of my recall. As I tried to remember, the sound of the fountain behind me, which at first I had found quite soothing, began to annoy me. It seemed that if only it woulds stop, my memory would unlock and I would finally remember the names.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“I’m coming to believe it might be to do with me. A sort of illness I have. It might even be part of the ageing process. After all, we get older and parts of us start to die. Perhaps we start to die emotionally too. Do you think that’s possible, Mr Ryder?”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“There’s really no reason to go over the past again. And of course there’s every hope for the future now.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“She deserved it, everything I said, every piece of filthy abuse, she deserved it …’ ‘Mr Brodsky, please, please. This is hardly the way to prepare yourself for this most important encounter …’ ‘Does she think I enjoyed it? That I did it for fun? I didn’t have to do it. Look, you see, when I want to stop the drink, I can. Does she think I did it for a joke?”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“If I’d known that was all she would do! A painful thing, Mr Ryder, to push away someone you love. You think I’d have done it? You think I’d have turned myself into this creature if that was all she was going to do?”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“So I knew I was better, better than they said. And for a little while after we came here, she knew it too, I know she did. But then, well, she began to doubt it, who can blame her?”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“All of a sudden I saw clearly something I’d been trying not to see over the years. I mean, that she had always hidden certain parts of herself from me.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“No, I didn’t know about such things then. I still hoped I would become in time the sort of person she believed me to be. Indeed, sir, I believed I would succeed in becoming such a person precisely because of her presence, because of her influence.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“I had certain plans then, such as you do when you are young, when you don’t realise how limited time is, when you don’t realise there’s a shell built around you, a hard shell so you can’t – get – out!”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“Of course, I have to say, when I took on these rules for myself, I was much younger and stronger, and I suppose I didn’t really calculate for my growing weaker with age. It’s funny, sir, but you don’t.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“It was the sort of place one might imagine lorry drivers stopping for a sandwich,”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“به‌هرحال ما پیرتر می‌شیم و یک بخشایی از وجودمون می‌میره، شاید عواطفمونم به‌تدریج می‌میره!”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“عاقل و منطقی بودن در ساعات روز و روشنایی یک چیزه، اما در تاریکی و شب مسئله فرق می‌کند.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“After a short moment to collect my thoughts I went into the vertiginous opening of Asbestos and Fibre. Then as the first movement settled into its more reflective phase, I became increasingly relaxed, so much so that I found myself playing most of the first movement with my eyes closed.

As I began the second movement, I opened my eyes again and found the afternoon sunshine streaming through the window behind me, throwing my shadow sharply across the keyboard. Even the demands of the second movement, however, did nothing to alter my calm. Indeed, I realised I was in absolute control of every dimension of the composition. I recalled how worried I had allowed myself to become over the course of the day and now felt utterly foolish for having done so. Moreover, now that I was in the midst of the piece, it seemed inconceiveable that my mother would not be moved by it. The simple fact was, I had no reason whatsoever to feel anything other than utter confidence concerning the evening's performance.

It was as I was entering the sublime melancholy of the third movement that I became aware of a noise in the background. At first I thought it was connected with the soft pedal, and then that it was something to do with the floor. It was a faint, rhythmic noise that would stop and start, and for some time I tried not to pay any attention to it. But it continued to return, and then, during the pianissimo passages mid-way through the movement, I realised that someone was digging outside not far away.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“آدم وقتی جوونه از محدودیت زمان بی‌خبره، نمیدونه یک صدف دور تنش تنیده شده، یک صدف سخت و محکم که نمی‌شه ازش بیرون اومد.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“همیشه وقتی اتفاق بدی می‌افته همون لحظه به نظر خیلی تلخ می‌آد، اما همه‌اش می‌گذره، هیچی نیست که به‌اندازه ظاهرش بدباشه.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“کار درست تن‌دادن به چالشه، نه رو آوردن به محدودیت و خودداری، در هر حال، آدم نباید محدودیت‌های خودش را فضیلت جلوه بدهد.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“دنیا پر از آدم‌های جورواجوریه که ادعای نابغه بودن دارن، اما تنها خصوصیت قابل‌ملاحظه‌شون ناتوانی عظیمشون در سازمان‌دهی زندگی‌هاشونه.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“These old wounds.’ He gave a shrug. ‘They stay the same for years. You think you’ve got the measure of it. Then you get old and they start to grow again.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“I say this because the world seems full of people claiming to be geniuses of one sort or another, who are in fact remarkable only for a colossal inability to organise their lives.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

“I led Sophie and Boris towards the doors, still in a quandary. For some reason, there had come into my head the numerous scenes from movies in which a character, wishing to make an impressive exit from a room, flings open the wrong door and walks into a cupboard. Although for exactly the opposite reason - I wished us to leave so inconspicuously that when it was discussed afterwards no one would be quite sure at which point we had done so - it was equally crucial I avoided such a calamity.
In the end I settled for the door most central in the row simply because it was the most imposing. There were pearl inlays within its deep panels and stone columns flanking each side. And at this moment, in front of each column, there stood a uniformed waiter as rigid as any sentry. A doorway of this status, I reasoned, while it might not necessarily take us directly through to the hotel, was certain to lead somewhere of significance from where we could work out our route, away from the public gaze.
Motioning Sophie and Boris to follow, I drifted towards the door and, giving one of the uniformed men a curt nod, as though to say: 'There's no need to stir, I know what I'm doing,' pulled it open.
Whereupon, to my horror, the very thing I had most feared occurred: I had opened a broom cupboard and, at that, one which had been filled beyond its capacity. Several household mops came rumbling out and fell with a clatter onto the marble floor, scattering a dark fluffy substance in all directions. Glancing into the cupboard, I saw an untidy heap of buckets, oily rags and aerosol cans.
'Excuse me,' I muttered to the uniformed man nearest me as he hastened to gather up the mops and, with glances now turning accusingly our way, I hurried in the direction of the neighbouring door.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled