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Michael Ondaatje Quotes

Novelist

Michael Ondaatje, born on September 12, 1943, is a renowned Canadian novelist. His works are known for their unique narrative style and profound emotional expression, with notable titles including 'In the Skin of a Lion' and 'The English Patient'.

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All Ifs Writing Book Stories Knows Novel Desert Hands Fall Lovers Want World Character Country Heart Love Men Way Names Thinking

Famous Michael Ondaatje Quotes

“You can see that the care he took defiling the beauty he had forced in them was as precise and clean as his good hands which at night had developed the negatives, floating the sheets in the correct acids and watching the faces and breasts and pubic triangles and sofas emerge. The making and destroying coming from the same source, same lust, same surgery his brain was capable of. (On New Orleans photographer E. J. Bellocq)”

Hands Care Faces Night Brain Source Capable Clean Photographer Lust Breasts Destroying Surgery Precise Sheets Floating New Orleans Acid Sofas Triangles

Book:Coming Through Slaughter

Source: Coming Through Slaughter

“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.”

Thinking Writing Trying Two Hands Reader Thirds Hand In Hand Precision

Author:Michael Ondaatje

“Her hand touched me at the wrist. "If I gave you my life, you would drop it. Wouldn't you?" I didn't say anything.”

Ifs Hands Touched Say Anything Wrists

Book:The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

“She lights a match in the dark hall and moves it onto the wick of the candle. Light lifts itself onto her shoulders. She is on her knees. She puts her hands on her thighs and breathes in the smell of the sulphur. She imagines she slap breathes in light.”

Hands Light Moving Dark Imagine Smell Breathe Shoulders Lifts Knees Halls Candle Slap Thighs Candle Lights

Book:The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

“A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands knowing it is something more than water. There is a plant whose heart, if one cuts it out is replaced with fluid containing herbal goodness. Every morning one can drink the liquid amount of the missing heart.”

Ifs Men Heart Hands Water Morning Knowing Cutting Missing Amount Drink Goodness Plant Absence Desert Every Morning Replaced Fluid Liquid Containing

Author:Michael Ondaatje

“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.”

Ifs World Said Hands Father House Walks Animal Wonder Path Taken Dog Fields Taught Garden Skins Smell Grass Concentration Disgusting Dirt Hints Cathedrals Paws Rumours Bouquets Brandy

Book:The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

“Water is the exile, carried back in cans and flasks, the ghost between your hands and your mouth.”

Hands Water Mouths Ghost Exile Flasks

Book:The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

“In the desert the most loved waters, like a lover's name, are carried blue in your hands, enter your throat. One swallows absence.”

Hands Names Water Lovers Blue Absence Desert Throat

Book:The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

“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.”

People Way Hands Company Gone Streets Wall Months Needed Walking Embrace Wave Muscles Midst Leap Bites Sane Clutch Downers

Author:Michael Ondaatje

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

Men Hands Water Knowing Absence Desert

Book:The English Patient: Special Edition

Source: The English Patient: Special Edition

“Kirpal's left hand swoops down and catches the dropped fork an inch from the floor and gently passes it into the fingers of his daughter, a wrinkle at the edge of his eyes behind his spectacles.”

Hands Eye Left Behinds Daughter Down And Fingers Edges His Eyes Inches Wrinkles Forks Spectacles Left Hand

Book:The English Patient: A Novel

Source: The English Patient: A Novel

About the Author

Born: September 12, 1943
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 200

Books & Sources

The English PatientRelated source material

DivisaderoRelated source material

In the Skin of a LionRelated source material

The Cat's TableRelated source material

Running in the FamilyRelated source material

Coming Through SlaughterRelated source material

The English Patient: A NovelRelated source material

The English Patient: Special EditionRelated source material

WarlightRelated source material

Anil's GhostRelated source material

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