The past is still, for us, a place that is not safely settled. Michael Ondaatje More Quotes by Michael Ondaatje More Quotes From Michael Ondaatje You're getting everyone's point of view at the same time, which for me, is the perfect state for a novel: a cubist state, the cubist novel. Michael Ondaatje statesviewsperfect Half a page--and the morning is already ancient. Michael Ondaatje pageshalfmorning This last night we tear into each other, as if to wound, as if to find the key to everything before morning. Michael Ondaatje morningnightsex 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. Michael Ondaatje armyeyemean Men had always been the reciters of poetry in the desert. Michael Ondaatje desertmen In Canada pianos needed water. You opened up the back and left a full glass of water, and a month later the glass would be empty. Her father had told her about the dwarfs who drank only at pianos, never in bars. Michael Ondaatje pianoglassesfather I promised to tell you how one falls in love. Michael Ondaatje falling-in-lovefall 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. Michael Ondaatje cuttingheartmorning We own the country we grow up in, or we are aliens and invaders. Michael Ondaatje growing-upalienscountry 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. Michael Ondaatje takendogfather All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps. Michael Ondaatje cartographymapsearth But we were interested in how our lives could mean something to the past. We sailed into the past. Michael Ondaatje our-livesmeanpast Fathers die.You keep on loving them in any way you can.You can't hide him away in your heart. Michael Ondaatje heartfatherway Before the real city could be seen it had to be imagined, the way rumours and tall tales were a kind of charting. Michael Ondaatje realcitiesway 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 menbelievebook How we are almost nothing. We think, in our youth, we are the centre of the universe, but we simply respond, go this way or that by accident, survive or improve by the luck of the draw, with little choice or determination on our part. Michael Ondaatje choicesdeterminationthinking So the books for the Englishman, as he listened intently or not, had gaps of plot like sections of a road washed out by storms, missing incidents as if locusts had consumed a section of tapestry, as if plaster loosened by the bombing had fallen away from a mural at night. Michael Ondaatje missingnightbook Come. We must go deeper with no justice and no jokes. Michael Ondaatje deeperjokesjustice 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. Michael Ondaatje smelldarkmoving Sometimes when she is able to spend the night with him they are wakened by the three minarets of the city beginning their prayers before dawn. He walks with her through the indigo markets that lie between South Cairo and her home. The beautiful songs of faith enter the air like arrows, one minaret answering another, as if passing on a rumor of the two of them as they walk through the cold morning air, the smell of charcoal and hemp already making the air profound. Sinners in a holy city. Michael Ondaatje songmorningbeautiful
