Kazuo Ishiguro Quotes

Life is full of what-ifs, many of which could easily have been realities, had just a few things been different.

One always wonders about roads not taken.

I don't really regret anything in my life.

I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn't.

I never had the chance to consider what or how I wanted to be.

I think I don't regret a single 'excess' of my responsive youth - I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.

I don't mind talking about 'what might have been,' but I am not one to doubt or regret most of my decisions.

I would have loved the opportunity to have gone to drama school, but it just didn't work out for me; there are always several paths, and there's a reason why I've been down this path.

I feel like I wasted my time in my twenties. When you are beginning to realise your potential you wish you'd realized it earlier.

There are not many regrets that I have. There are a few things that I wish I'd changed in my life, but they are not so dramatic that I'd go out of my way to change them. But I go back and think about my life so far periodically in my head.

The truth is, everything that's happened was supposed to happen. That doesn't mean I don't look back and think, God, I wish I hadn't had to go through some of those things.

Knowing what I know now and what I have been through, would I do it the same? I look at the alternative - a very simple life. It would have been nice to have a simple life.

My mom had very low expectations for me, and she really had a point. I was a big problem at seventeen. If I had a kid like me, I would have those same expectations.

I wanted to do a show based on what my life would be like if I had never become a comedian.

To me, it's always interesting to see what people end up regretting, as a way maybe to avoid such regrets in your own life.

If I was starting off now, I would probably have taken one or two different turnings along the way.

The follies which a man regrets the most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity.

Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.

I don't know how to sit outside myself and test against a hypothetical self who stayed home.

There is stuff I would have liked to have done. But there are no sour grapes.

There are many things that, if I have to relive, maybe I will do it another way. But I would not like to look back and think what I have not been able to.

I wouldn't change a single thing, because one change alters every moment that follows it.

Fiction gives us the second chances that life denies us.

I would hate to look back on my life and go, 'You know, I wanted to do a rock n' roll album. I should have, and I never did.'

Life's missed opportunities, at the end, may seem more poignant to us than those we embraced - because in our imagination they have a perfection that reality can never rival.