Quotes by Michael Ondaatje

Everything that ever happened to me that was important happened in the desert.

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.

Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous.

“My darling, Im waiting for you — how long is a day in the dark, or a week? The fire is gone now, and Im horribly cold. I really ought to drag myself outside but then there would be the sun. . . Im afraid I waste the light on the paintings and on writing these words. We die, we die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have entered and swum up like rivers, fears we have hidden in, like this wretched cave. We are the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men. I know you will come and carry me out into the palace of winds. Thats all Ive wanted — to walk in such a place with you, with friends, on earth without maps...”

“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.”

“We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie.”

“Men had always been the reciters of poetry in the desert.”