Michael Ondaatje Quotes

Sri Lanka, Poet
September 12, 1943

Philip Michael Ondaatje, CC FRSL is a Sri Lanka-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, editor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of multiple literary awards such as the Governor General's Award, the Giller Prize, the Booker Prize, and the Prix Médicis étranger. Ondaatje is also an Officer of the Order of Canada, recognizing him as one of Canada's most renowned living authors.

Also known as Writer, Essayist, Novelist, Editor, Film Maker

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

Michael Ondaatje
- Tears
- Them
- Reduced
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

Everyone has to scratch on walls somewhere or they go crazy

Michael Ondaatje
- Crazy
- Everyone
- Scratch
She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.

Michael Ondaatje
- Reason
- Wanted
- Shapes
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
- Time
- Should
- Humans
There's more danger in the violence you don't face.

Michael Ondaatje
- Violence
- Danger
- Faces
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
- Character
- Stories
- Tests
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
- Lives
- Borders
- Crosses

Love is the use one makes of another.

Michael Ondaatje
- Another
- Makes
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
From this point on, she whispered, we will either find or lose our souls.

Michael Ondaatje
- Soul
- Loses
- Whispered
The trouble with all of us is we are where we shouldn't be.

Michael Ondaatje
- Should
- Trouble