He has been disassembled by her. And if she has brought him to this, what has he brought her to? Michael Ondaatje More Quotes by Michael Ondaatje More Quotes From Michael Ondaatje In the book the relationship with Katharine and Almasy is sort of only in the patient's mind. Michael Ondaatje mindrelationshipbook I'm a Canadian citizen. But I always want to feel at home in Sri Lanka. I'm a member of both countries. Michael Ondaatje sri-lankahomecountry So many nurses had turned into emotionally disturbed handmaidens of the war, in their yellow-and-crimson uniforms with bone buttons. Michael Ondaatje nurseyellowwar 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. Michael Ondaatje daughtereyehands The rulers of the country generally believed that betting eliminates strikes. Men had to work in order to gamble. Michael Ondaatje gamblingmencountry ...the heart is an organ of fire. Michael Ondaatje fireheartlove The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat. Michael Ondaatje laststhreebook It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself. Michael Ondaatje arguingcharacter 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. Michael Ondaatje brave-new-worldsmartfalling-in-love I am not in love with him, I am in love with ghosts. So is he, he's in love with ghosts. Michael Ondaatje ghost That's Anil's path. She grows up in Sri Lanka, goes and gets educated abroad, and through fate or chance gets brought back by the Human Rights Commission to investigate war crimes. Michael Ondaatje fategrowing-upwar There was always, he thought, this pleasure ahead of him, an ace of joy up his sleeve so he could say you can do anything to me, take everything away, put me in prison, but I will know [her] when we are old. Michael Ondaatje acesprisonjoy It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow. Michael Ondaatje readerresponsibilitystories I don't see novels ending with any real sense of closure. Michael Ondaatje closurenovelreal I don't have a plan for a story when I sit down to write. I would get quite bored carrying it out. Michael Ondaatje boredstorieswriting …Even the idea of a city never entered his mind. It was as if he had walked under the millimeter of haze just above the inked fibers of a map, that pure zone between land and chart, between distances and legends, between nature and storyteller. The place they had chosen to come to, to be their best selves, to be unconscious of ancestry. Here, apart from the sun compass and the odometer mileage, and the book, he was alone, his own invention. He knew during these times how the mirage worked, the fata morgana, for he was within it. Michael Ondaatje distancelandbook In Sri Lanka a well-told lie is worth a thousand facts. Michael Ondaatje sri-lankalyingfacts We keep wanting to save those who are forlorn in this world. It’s a male habit. Michael Ondaatje maleshabitworld Between the kitchen and the destroyed chapel a door led into an oval-shaped library. The space inside seemed safe except for a large hole at portrait level in the far wall, caused by mortar-shell attack on the villa two months earlier. The rest of the room had adapted itself to this wound, accepting the habits of weather, evening stars, the sound of birds. Michael Ondaatje wallstarsdoors She had lived in that house fourteen years, and every year she had demanded of John that she be given a pet of some strange exotic breed. Not that she did not have enough animals. She had collected several wild and broken animals that, in a way, had become exotic by their breaking. Their roof would have collapsed from the number of birds who might have lived there if the desert hadn't killed three- quarters of those that tried to cross it. Still every animal that came within a certain radius of that house was given a welcome-the tame, the half born, the wild, the wounded. Michael Ondaatje numbersanimalyears
