There was a time when mapmakers named the places they travelled through with the names of lovers rather than their own. Michael Ondaatje More Quotes by Michael Ondaatje More Quotes From Michael Ondaatje 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. Michael Ondaatje eye simple character She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become. Michael Ondaatje understood products parent I want to die on your chest but not yet she wrote sometime in the 13th century of our love Michael Ondaatje our-love century want There's more danger in the violence you don't face. Michael Ondaatje violence danger faces I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me. Michael Ondaatje theme plot stories She is a woman of honour and smartness whose wild leaves out luck, always taking risks, and there is something in her brow now, that only she can recognize in a mirror. Ideal and idealistic in that shiny dark hair! People fall in love with her. She is a woman I don’t know well enough to hold in my wing, if writers have wings, to harbour for the rest of my life. Michael Ondaatje falling-in-love dark wings Here. Where I am anonymous and alone in a white room with no history and no parading. So I can make something unknown in the shape of this room. Where I am King of Corners. Michael Ondaatje shapes kings white I love the performance of a craft, whether it is modest or mean-spirited, yet I walk away when discussions of it begin - as if one should ask a gravedigger what brand of shovel he uses or whether he prefers to work at noon or in moonlight. I am interested only in the care taken, and those secret rehearsals behind it. Even if I do not understand fully what is taking place. Michael Ondaatje taken secret mean Every immigrant family, it seems, has someone who does not belong in the new country they have come to. It feels like permanent exile to that one brother or wife who cannot stand a silent fate in Boston or London or Melbourne. I’ve met many who remain haunted by the persistent ghost of an earlier place. Michael Ondaatje fate brother country Love is the use one makes of another. Michael Ondaatje use love-is Most of the time in our world, truth is just opinion. Michael Ondaatje our-world opinion world The past is still, for us, a place that is not safely settled. Michael Ondaatje stills past So we came to understand that small and important thing, that our lives could be large with interesting strangers who would pass us without any personal involvement. Michael Ondaatje stranger important interesting He knows that the only way he can accept losing her is if he can continue to hold her or be held by her. If they can somehow nurse each other out of this. Not with a wall. Michael Ondaatje wall nurse way Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again. Michael Ondaatje right-now writing ideas Research can be a big clunker. It's difficult to know how you can make the historical light. Michael Ondaatje historical light research Sadness is very close to hate. Michael Ondaatje sad sadness hate What began it all was the bright bone of a dream I could hardly hold onto. Michael Ondaatje bones dream I have to teach myself not to read too much into everything. It comes from too long having to read into hardly anything at all. Michael Ondaatje teach too-much long She moved from being a young woman into having the angular look of a queen, someone who has made her face with her desire to be a certain kind of person. He still likes that about her. Her smartness, the fact that she did not inherit that look or that beauty, but it was something searched for and that it will always reflect a present stage of her character. Michael Ondaatje queens desire character
