"We've run out of time. We have this one-minute discussion period going on here."

"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, 124).

Though I'm still bitter about the oxford comma issue, I have to admit that Ishiguro is very good at making analogies. The other one I can remember is the puddle one, which also happened in a conversation between Kathy and Ruth.

It's an interesting idea to compare a quarreling conversation to a game of chess, but it's kind of accurate. There are some moves of little consequence that are kind of like pleasantries. There are moves where you put your opponent in an unfortunate situation, which is like being on the winning side of a debate. Then there are the moves that Ishiguro described, which are like when you slip in the middle of a conversation. Also, clocks in chess are the scariest things of my life; they're kind of like the Obama-McCain town hall debate when Tom Brokaw kept cutting them off.

Both this analogy and the puddle analogy described "mistakes" Kathy made when she was conversing with Ruth, and both of them allowed Ruth to embrace her annoying, manipulative side and dominate the conversation. Their characters really don't go well together. You know what characters do go together? Kathy and Tommy. I just . . . don't . . . like . . . Ruth.