Never Let Me Go is a 2005 dystopian science fiction novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Booker Prize, for the 2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award and for the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award. Profoundly inspirational Never Let Me Go quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
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Famous Never Let Me Go Quotes
We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all. — Never Let Me Go
In fact, I hardly saw the contorted bodies, because I was focusing on the faces. — Kathy
But in the end I managed it, and the instant I saw her again, at that recovery centre in Dover, all our differences—while they didn’t exactly vanish—seemed not nearly as important as all the other things. — Kathy-Ruth
I won’t be a carer any more come the end of the year, and though I’ve got a lot out of it, I have to admit I’ll welcome the chance to rest—to stop and think and remember. I’m sure it’s at least partly to do with that, to do with preparing for the change of pace, that I’ve been getting this urge to order all these old memories. — Kathy
I kept you and Tommy apart … that was the worst thing I did. — Ruth
Why did we do all of that work in the first place? Why train us, encourage us, make us produce all of that? If we’re just going to give donations anyway, then die, why all those lessons? Why all those books and discussions? — Kathy
She could decide for herself what’s a good match and what’s just a stupid crush. — Tommy
I was talking to one of my donors a few days ago who was complaining about how memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t see them ever fading. — Kathy
I never appreciated in those days the sheer effort Ruth was making to move on. — Kathy
I can see … that it might look as though you are simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns. There was a certain climate and now it’s gone. You have to accept that sometimes that’s how things happen in this world. — Miss Emily
I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they’d once belonged to the sea. — Never Let Me Go
The problem, as I see it, is that you’ve been told and not told. You’ve been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way. — Never Let Me Go
So you’re waiting, even if you don’t quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realize that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you—of how you were brought into this world and why—and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. — Kathy-Madame
None of you will go to America, none of you will be film stars. And none of you will be working in supermarkets as I heard some of you planning the other day. Your lives are set out for you. — Miss Lucy
It never occurred to me that our lives, until then so closely interwoven, could unravel and separate over a thing like that. But the fact was, I suppose, there were powerful tides tugging us apart by then, and it only needed something like that to finish the task. If we’d understood that back then-who knows? Maybe we’d have kept a tighter hold of one another. — Never Let Me Go
Those early months at the Cottages had been a strange time in our friendship. We were quarrelling over all kinds of little things, but at the same time we were confiding in each other more than ever. — Kathy-Ruth
Didn’t we all dream from time to time about one guardian or other bending the rules and doing something special for us? A spontaneous hug, a secret letter, a gift? — Kathy
How you were regarded at Hailsham … had to do with how good you were at creating. — Kathy
Why would he know? … How could he possibly know what Chrissie would have felt? What she would have wanted? It wasn’t him on that table, trying to cling onto life. How would he know? — Ruth
My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. — Kathy
I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart. That’s how I think it is with us. It’s a shame, Kath, because we’ve loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can’t stay together forever. — Kathy-Tommy
We all know it. We’re modelled from trash. Junkies, prostitutes, winos, tramps. Convicts, maybe, just so long as they aren’t psychos. That’s what we come from. We all know it, so why don’t we say it? — Ruth
Then there were rumours almost every day of pranks that had been played on him. … I thought sooner or later someone would start saying it had gone too far, but it just kept on, and no one said anything. — Kathy
Norfolk came to be a real source of comfort for us. — Kathy
Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading. — Never Let Me Go
If you’re to live decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you. — Miss Lucy
I was like you, Tommy. I was pretty much ready when I became a donor. It felt right. After all, it’s what we’re supposed to be doing, isn’t it? — Tommy-Ruth
It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you’ve made, and there’s this panic because you don’t know yet the scale of disaster you’ve left yourself open to. — Never Let Me Go
Something in me just gave up. A voice went: ‘All right, let him think the absolute worst. Let him think it, let him think it.’ And I suppose I looked at him with resignation, with a face that said, ‘Yes, it’s true, what else did you expect?’ — Kathy
Tommy doesn’t like girls who’ve been with … well, you know, with this person and that. — Ruth
Look at this art! How dare you claim these children are anything less than fully human? — Miss Emily
I thought about Hailsham closing, and how it was like someone coming along with a pair of shears and snipping the balloon strings just where they entwined above the man’s fist. Once that happened, there’d be no real sense in which those balloons belonged with each other any more. — Kathy
The fantasy never got beyond that—I didn’t let it—and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn’t sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. — Kathy
I started seeking out for my donors people from the past. — Kathy
Well, I suppose you’re the natural successor. — Cynthia
She thought it was really tragic, how you couldn’t have babies. — Tommy
Somewhere underneath, a part of us stayed like that … unable quite to let each other go. — Kathy
The fact was, I suppose, there were powerful tides tugging us apart by then, and it only needed something like that to finish the task. If we’d understood that back then––who knows?––maybe we’d have kept a tighter hold of one another. — Kathy
All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma. — Never Let Me Go
Or maybe I’m remembering it wrong. — Kathy
I realised, of course, that other people used these roads; but that night, it seemed to me these dark byways of the country existed just for the likes of us, while the big glittering motorways with their huge signs and super cafés were for everyone else. — Kathy
Maybe all of us at Hailsam had little secrets like that — little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone without fears and longing. — Never Let Me Go
It should have been you two. I’m not pretending I didn’t always see that. Of course I did, as far back as I can remember. But I kept you apart. I’m not asking you to forgive me for that. That’s not what I’m after just now. What I want is for you to put it right. Put right what I messed up for you. — Kathy-Tommy-Ruth
I don’t know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham we had to have some form of medical almost every week. — Kathy
Because Ruth was from Hailsham, somehow the whole notion came within the realms of the possible. — Kathy
I suppose it was mainly us newcomers who talked about ‘dream futures’ that winter, though a number of veterans did too . . . It couldn’t last, of course, but like I say, just for those few months, we somehow managed to live in this cosy state of suspension in which we could ponder our lives without the usual boundaries. — Kathy
There have been times over the years when I’ve tried to leave Hailsham behind, when I’ve told myself I shouldn’t look back so much. But then there came a point when I just stopped resisting. — Kathy
Nevertheless, we all of us, to varying degrees, believed that when you saw the person you were copied from, you’d get some insight into who you were deep down, and maybe too, you’d see something of what your life held in store. — Kathy
You’re not like the actors you watch on your videos, you’re not even like me. — Miss Lucy
Listen, Tommy, your art, it is important. And not just because it’s evidence. But for your own sake. You’ll get a lot from it, just for yourself. — Tommy-Miss Lucy
I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel, world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. — Never Let Me Go
And so we stood together like that, at the top of that field, for what seemed like ages, not saying anything, just holding each other, while the wind kept blowing and blowing at us, tugging our clothes, and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onto each other because that was the only way to stop us being swept away into the night. — Kathy-Tommy
But this dream of yours, this dream of being able to defer. Such a thing would always have been beyond us to grant, even at the height of our influence. I’m sorry, I can see what I’m saying won’t be welcome to you. But you mustn’t be dejected. — Kathy-Tommy-Miss Emily
Our models, what they were like, that’s nothing to do with us. — Tommy
