dialogue prompts from the remains of the day by kazuo ishiguro.
you look like you could make good use of a break.
take my advice: get out of the house for a few days.
there is no virtue in clinging to tradition for its own sake.
i had to choose my moment wisely.
i'd never have figured you for such a ladies' man.
you won't get a better view anywhere.
you're in good shape for your age.
you know when somebody's got it, and you know when somebody hasn't.
i'm still not clear what you are getting at.
you and i have to work as a team.
i do not believe i am confused at all.
if only i had as much spare time as you apparently do.
ladies and gentlemen differ in several key respects.
would you mind coming to the point?
______ is perpetually underestimating me.
i hope i've been a good ______ to you.
what you describe as 'amateurism' is what i think most of us here still prefer to call 'honor'.
'professionalism' appears to mean 'getting one's way by cheating and manipulating'. ordering one's priorities according to greed and advantage, rather than the desire to see goodness and justice prevail in the world.
are you alright? you look as though you're crying.
at one point, i would have sworn you were at least three people.
you talk almost like a gentleman.
you're the real thing, aren't you?
i may have given you a slightly misleading picture.
why did you tell such a tale?
i have chosen to tell white lies as the simplest means of avoiding unpleasantness.
i know i should be sorry.
things have not been all they might.
we must not allow sentiment to creep into our judgment.
it was wrong, what happened.
i feel so ashamed of myself, but i just couldn't leave. i just couldn't bring myself to leave.
what's done can hardly be undone.
why do you always have to pretend?
i suffered all the more because i believed i was alone.
can it be that you're flesh and blood, after all?
why is that guilty smile on your face?
i am slightly amused by your astonishing capacity to talk nonsense.
we don't have money, but who cares? we have love, and who wants anything else? we've got one another. that's all anyone can ever want.
it seems you were right, and i was wrong.
no doubt it's refreshing to leave the house, from time to time.
i really cannot imagine what more you might wish for, in life.
i am very, very tired. can you not appreciate that?
what is the sense in forever speculating what might have happened, if such-and-such a moment had turned out differently?
he may have had a lot of money, but he was no gentleman.
_____ took us all for fools.
a lot of hard talking and thinking goes on in this place. there's plenty of good, strong opinion around, and people aren't shy about expressing it.
some mistake acting high and mighty for dignity.
i suppose i have been very fortunate. i would be the first to admit that.
it's a great privilege to have been given a part to play, however small, on the world's stage.
public life can change people unrecognizably in a few short years.
in my own small way, i believe i'm doing my part.
people here want to be left alone to live their quiet little lives.
i do wish you'd sit down.
don't you care at all? aren't you at all curious?
today's world is too foul a place for fine and noble instincts.
i'm really sorry. i had no idea things had been so bad.
will you wait with me? it will only be a few minutes.
one can't be forever dwelling on what might have been.
it is too late to turn back the clock.
sea air does you a lot of good.
you never know who you're addressing, when you start talking to a stranger.
i gave _____ the very best i had to give, and now i find i do not have a great deal left to give.
i've given what i had to give. i gave it all to _____.
you want a hankie? i've got one somewhere. it's fairly clean.
i can't even say i made my own mistakes. what dignity is there in that?
you've got to enjoy yourself. the evening's the best part of the day.
what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves, if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?
surely it is enough that the likes of you and me at least try to make a small contribution count for something true and worthy.
in bantering lies the key to human warmth.
