I believe in such cartography – to be marked by nature, not just label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. ... All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.

Michael Ondaatje

Categorized in : Book Believe Men

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

Michael Ondaatje

clarity shapes reason

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

tests stories character

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

one-direction falling-in-love believe

Everyone has to scratch on walls somewhere or they go crazy

Michael Ondaatje

scratches wall crazy

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

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

childhood echoes glasses

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

Michael Ondaatje

tears

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

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

our-lives borders crosses

In the desert you celebrate nothing but water.

Michael Ondaatje

celebrate desert water

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

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

Michael Ondaatje

knowing men hands

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

Michael Ondaatje

trouble

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

sorrow hair long

Death means you are in the third person.

Michael Ondaatje

third-person thirds mean

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 hands thinking

And it would be a spare life he would be certain to lead as a schoolteacher in some urban location. But he had a serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by.

Michael Ondaatje

serenity choices book

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

A love story is not about those who lost their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing—not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.

Michael Ondaatje

sleep heart mean

How does this happen? To fall in love and be disassembled.

Michael Ondaatje

falling-in-love doe fall