Michael Ondaatje Quotes

Quotes about:

• There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border that we cross.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Borders, Crosses, Our Lives

  Michael Ondaatje (2010). “Divisadero”, p.14, Bloomsbury Publishing

  27 Copy quote

• She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Shapes, Clarity, Reason

  FaceBook post by Michael Ondaatje from Aug 24, 2012

  57 Copy quote

• There is a story, always ahead of you. Barely existing. Only gradually do you attach yourself to it and feed it. You discover the carapace that will contain and test your character. You will find in this way the path of your life.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Character, Stories, Tests

  35 Copy quote

• We are expanded by tears, we are told, not reduced by them.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Tears

  34 Copy quote

• I believe this. When we meet those we fall in love with, there is an aspect of our spirit that is historian, a bit of a pedant who reminisces or remembers a meeting when the other has passed by innocently…but all parts of the body must be ready for the other, all atoms must jump in one direction for desire to occur.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Falling In Love, Believe, One Direction

  FaceBook post by Michael Ondaatje from Jan 09, 2013

  42 Copy quote

• Everyone has to scratch on walls somewhere or they go crazy

  Michael Ondaatje

  Wall, Crazy, Scratches

  Michael Ondaatje (2011). “In the Skin of a Lion”, p.75, Vintage

  40 Copy quote

• We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Relationship, Believe, Book

  FaceBook post by Michael Ondaatje from Nov 01, 2015

  33 Copy quote

• The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Trust, Order, Firsts

  Michael Ondaatje (2011). “In the Skin of a Lion”, p.148, Vintage

  35 Copy quote

• That's one of the great sadnesses of any life - knowing what you know now and then remembering what you did not know then.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Sadness, Knowing, Remember

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  8 Copy quote

• The trouble with all of us is we are where we shouldn't be.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Trouble

  Michael Ondaatje (2011). “The English Patient”, p.129, A&C Black

  21 Copy quote

• Most of the time in our world, truth is just opinion.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Our World, World, Opinion

  Michael Ondaatje (2001). “Anil's Ghost”, p.83, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• For we live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and rhymes, making up a single monologue. We live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Echoes, Glasses, Childhood

  FaceBook post by Michael Ondaatje from Dec 05, 2011

  39 Copy quote

• I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Writing, Doors, Novel

  5 Copy quote

• In the desert you celebrate nothing but water.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Water, Desert, Celebrate

  Michael Ondaatje (2011). “The English Patient”, p.25, A&C Black

  20 Copy quote

• All I ever wanted was a world without maps.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Life, World, Maps

  10 Copy quote

• Some events take a lifetime to reveal their damage and influence.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Events, Damage, Influence

  5 Copy quote

• For the first forty days a child is given dreams of previous lives. Journeys, winding paths, a hundred small lessons and then the past is erased.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Dream, Children, Past

  FaceBook post by Michael Ondaatje from Jul 03, 2011

  27 Copy quote

• A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands, knowing it is something that feeds him more than water.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Men, Hands, Knowing

  Michael Ondaatje (2009). “The English Patient: Special Edition”, p.165, A&C Black

  27 Copy quote

• I think precision in writing goes hand in hand with not trying to say everything. You try and say two-thirds, so the reader will involve himself or herself.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Writing, Thinking, Hands

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  16 Copy quote

• We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Love, Heart, Loss

  29 Copy quote

• It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Writing, Views, Perception

  7 Copy quote

• ...sometimes we enter art to hide within it. It is where we can go to save ourselves, where a third-person voice protects us.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Art, Voice, Sometimes

  Michael Ondaatje (2010). “Divisadero”, p.99, Bloomsbury Publishing

  11 Copy quote

• Death means you are in the third person.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Mean, Third Person, Thirds

  Michael Ondaatje (2009). “The English Patient: Special Edition”, p.263, A&C Black

  25 Copy quote

• The joyful will stoop with sorrow, and when you have gone to the earth I will let my hair grow long for your sake, I will wander through the wilderness in the skin of a lion

  Michael Ondaatje

  Hair, Long, Sorrow

  Michael Ondaatje (2011). “In the Skin of a Lion”, p.8, Vintage

  27 Copy quote

• Could you fall in love with her if she wasn't smarter than you? I mean, she may not be smarter than you. But isn't it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? Think now.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Falling In Love, Mean, Thinking

  FaceBook post by Michael Ondaatje from Dec 14, 2011

  21 Copy quote

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