Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

Restaurants are minefields for the socially inept

There is no embarrassment quite like the embarrassment of listening to a person for whom one has a regard making a fool of himself.

There's always something that happens where I go, 'Oh, that was so awkward!'

God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.

But I don't have a very good track record with royalty. My dress fell off in front of Prince Charles at the Prince's Trust, so I'm just living up to my reputation.

Some people, they just don't get a joke.

I never know how to get off the phone, so I'm terribly admiring of people who can.

It's very dangerous to wave to people you don't know because what if they don't have hands? They'll think you're cocky.

When I try to be funny, it always makes me more nervous that I'm trying too hard, and then my brain that already thinks too much jumps into hyper drive, and I light-speed start talking 'Star Trek' to someone who's talking 'Star Wars.' Anyway, it doesn't work out usually when I 'try' to be funny.

I've been saying inappropriate things since I was a kid.

Cocktail parties for me can be nerve-racking. The brevity of conversations, the number of them - it's not my sweet spot.

I can't make eye contact when people sing 'Happy Birthday' to me.

We've all been there, right? When you meet someone personally and then you find yourself working with them professionally, it's awkward.

When I first met Clint Eastwood, I bobbed him a curtsy. I still cringe about that to this day.

It's like, you know how sometimes you see a really sexy baby? Wait.

I tell ya, my wife was never nice. On our first date, I asked her if I could give her a goodnight kiss on the cheek - she bent over!

I didn't mean to turn you on.

Never looking anyone in the eye when you're traveling on public transport, in case it's interpreted as a sign that you're trying to get off with them.

He did say I fascinated him, but he really should have clarified to me that I was just the fascination for the day.

There's nothing that makes me laugh more than being in the situation where you're not supposed to laugh. Funerals. People crying. Breaking down. Telling you their life. I'm the worst. I'm the worst at that.

On True Blood — I've never told anybody this—but I was so nervous and I was so drunk that after I shot the scene I was going up to the crew members — and I had just met all these people the day before — and I was going up to all of them like, 'You got a boner! You do! You've got one!' It was horrible. Horrible!

Sometimes the things that come out of my mouth are mortifying.

I always made an awkward bow.

The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?

I think that music at inappropriate times with inappropriate volumes can be the funniest thing ever.