Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

I don't write genre stuff in any form. I'm not interested in it. I always try to do the opposite of that.

We need more extreme movies in Sweden. Personal projects that are necessarily made for a bigger audience. I think it creates a creative lock-up to have the audience as a goal.

Sometimes, I'll hear from other writers or folks in the publishing industry that my books are rule-breakers, which I take as a compliment.

I think doing variations on a classical theme is a dangerous thing to do.

I wanted each of my books to be very different from the others, each to be special and uncategorizable, and I knew I could only do that a few times before I was in danger of repeating myself.

If it is something that I want to do, then I don't think the audience will hate it. Unless I turn into a megalomaniac and start thinking that Salman Khan can do anything.

Every artist is unreasonable, because he or she is doing something that hasn't been done before.

I don't think you can write according to a set of rules and laws; every writer is so different.

The best films come about through experimentation.

I don't think people want to see me as a regular guy; besides, I'm a regular guy in real life. I guess I just want to be reckless in my work.

I've always been inspired by Genet, Henry Miller and Hubert Selby, Jr., who taught me that you've got to tell a bigger truth in whatever you're doing, but the truth is not popular.

No one has the Houdini school of composition.

The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, 'Write something you'd never show your mother or father.' And you know what they say? 'I could never do that!'

I admire James Franco. I admire somebody like Jack Nicholson. Anyone who just does movies for the sake of making movies and takes big risks.

If you want to write serious books, you must be ready to break the forms.

Sometimes you find that there is better material in small and more independent movies. There's more risk-taking.

I don't like playing standards. I like to do my own cutting edge work.

I have never written out of a desire to be controversial.

I don't think there's any topic a writer should feel afraid of tackling just because it has already been discussed. If you feel you have a fresh perspective and an understanding of a certain emotional truth, it's always worth writing.

I wanted to do a weird book and reestablish my independent, small-press roots.

Show me a Scorsese film, and I'll show you a movie where he's taken risks. It's just his nature. He's an artist, and artists take risks. He always does what he believes in.

I definitely think independent film is very exciting, and you get to sometimes take bigger risks. So that's always a challenge and something that I look forward to.

Films should involve a director's idiosyncrasies as much as possible I think.

I love my arthouse films, and I love taking a chance.

I am not bothered with whether my characters are conventional or not. Because I am not in this for the designer labels and the autographs.