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Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje Quotes

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Famous Michael Ondaatje Quotes

“The desert could not be claimed or owned — it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East ... All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith. We disappeared into landscape.”

ChildrenLongCountryHomeNamesGivenPiecesWindBattleHundredEuropeStonesDistanceEastOur CountryDesertLandscapeRemoveClothingsShiftingTreatiesCanterbury
Author:Michael Ondaatje
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“When we are young we do not look into mirrors. It is when we are old, concerned with our name, our legend, what our lives will mean to the future. We become vain with the names we own, our claims to have been the first eyes, the strongest army, the cleverest merchant. It is when he is old that Narcissus wants a graven image of himself.”

WantFirstsLooksMeanHas BeensEyeYoungNamesOur LivesConcernedClaimsArmyMirrorsVainStrongestLegendsMerchantsNarcissus
Book:The English Patient
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“Her father had taught her about hands. About a dog's paws. Whenever her father was alone with a dog in a house he would lean over and smell the skin at the base of its paw. This, he would say, as if coming away from a brandy snifter, is the greatest smell in the world! A bouquet! Great rumours of travel! She would pretend disgust, but the dog's paw was a wonder: the smell of it never suggested dirt. It's a cathedral! her father had said, so-and-so's garden, that field of grasses, a walk through cyclamen--a concentration of hints of all the paths the animal had taken during the day.”

IfsWorldSaidHandsFatherHouseWalksAnimalWonderPathTakenDogFieldsTaughtGardenSkinsSmellGrassConcentrationDisgustingDirtHintsCathedralsPawsRumoursBouquetsBrandy
Book:The English Patient
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“when someone speaks he looks at a mouth, not eyes and their colors, which, it seems to him, will always alter depending on the light of a room, the minute of the day. Mouths reveal insecurity or smugness or any other point on the spectrum of character. For him they are the most intricate aspect of faces. He's never sure what an eye reveals. but he can read how mouths darken into callousness, suggest tenderness. One can often misjudge an eye from its reaction to a simple beam of sunlight.”

LooksCharacterLightSeemsEyeFacesSpeakSimpleRoomsMinutesColorMouthsAspectReactionsInsecurityTendernessSunlightSpectrumBeamIntricateSmugnessCallousness
Author:Michael Ondaatje
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“Tell me, is it possible to love someone who is not as smart as you are? ...But isn't it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? ...Why is that? Because we want to know things, how the pieces fit. Talkers seduce, words direct us into corners. We want more than anything to grow and change. Brave new world.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldWantImportantOrderFallGrowsPiecesFitSmartDirectBraveFalling In LoveCornersNew WorldSmarterLove SomeoneSeducingTalkersBrave New World
Author:Michael Ondaatje
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“You have to protect yourself from sadness. Sadness is very close to hate. Let me tell you this. This is the thing I learned. If you take in someone else's poison – thinking you can cure them by sharing it – you will instead store it within you. Those men in the desert were smarter than you. They assumed he could be useful. So they saved him, but when he was no longer useful they left him.”

IfsThinkingMenHateLeftSadnessProtectLet MeStoresSavedCuresDesertPoisonWithin YouSmarterProtect Yourself
Author:Michael Ondaatje
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“Women want everything of a lover. And too often I would sink below the surface. So armies disappear under sand. And there was her fear of her husband, her belief in her honour, my old desire for self-sufficiency, my disappearances, her suspicions of me, my disbelief that she loved me. The paranoia and claustrophobia of hidden love.”

WantSelfDesireBeliefLoversHusbandArmySurfaceDisappearSandHonourSuspicionDisbeliefParanoiaWomen WantDisappearanceSelf SufficiencySufficiencyBelow The SurfaceClaustrophobia
Book:The English Patient
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“Some people you just had to embrace, in some way or another, had to bite into the muscle, to remain sane in their company. You needed to grab their hair and clutch it like a drowner so they would pull you into their midst. Otherwise they, walking casually down the street towards you, almost about to wave, would leap over a wall and be gone for months.”

PeopleWayHandsCompanyGoneStreetsWallMonthsNeededWalkingEmbraceWaveMusclesMidstLeapBitesSaneClutchDowners
Author:Michael Ondaatje
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