Michael Ondaatje Quotes
Quotes to Explore
-
I think it's flattering when people say I'm a role model, but I don't think I am. It depends on your outlook on the word 'role model.' I'm not perfect or anything. I just consider it a great compliment.
-
The shelf life of the average trade book is somewhere between milk and yogurt.
-
And the success of the union movement, historically, has always been to benefit all working men and women - not just people who belong to the union.
-
My youngest sister belonged to a group called the Twelve Tribes for many years. She recently left, with her husband and four children. Talking to her about her experiences in the group is fascinating, moving, and enlightening.
-
One needs to live every day according to God's commandments. And then any kind of difficulty or unpleasantness will be manageable.
-
Sales don't always have anything to do with good or brilliant or original. Sales are about appeal.
-
Poor people have more fun than rich people, they say; and I notice it's the rich people who keep saying it.
-
In almost every marriage there is a selfish and an unselfish partner. A pattern is set up and soon becomes inflexible, of one person always making the demands and one person always giving way.
-
Make no mistake: The organization of the working class must be both economic and political. The capitalist is organized upon both lines. You must attack him on both.
-
I don't think I can speak of the achievements of Indian cinema because it's so large next to me. It's not stopping. It's ever-growing. We are going towards the right direction. We are evolving as a filmmaking industry as actors, directors, producers, singers, musicians. Everybody just pushing the boundaries.
-
Whereupon, at the tender age of thirteen, I set upon the path of playing nothing but hookers.
-
Freedom is popular. Bring it on.
-
I feel very meditative when I ride. A horse does not know whether my movie is a hit or a flop or what is happening in my relationship.
-
On Friday night, if you want to go out on a date with your wife or your girlfriend, nothing on Netflix competes with that, right? Because you're getting out; that's what you're doing. If you don't want to put your shoes on, nothing in the cinema competes with the worst thing on Netflix.
-
The books I write because I want to read them, the games because I want to play them, and stories I tell because I find them exciting personally.
-
'Everyone exploits somebody.'
-
Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.
-
Religion is a complex and often contradictory force in our world. It fosters hope and comfort but also doubt and guilt. It creates both community and exclusion. It brings societies together around shared belief and tears them apart through war. However, what unites the faithful, whatever their religion, is the unshakeable force of generosity.
-
What escapes us tears us from ourselves and ruins us. I seek what cannot be sought. I am a miscarried void, the hollowest quest.
-
I want every day to be life for the living, not just traipsing through it existing. I'm just interested in life and the world and exploring.
-
Probably the best caddies are the smartest ones and the ones that are switched on mentally more than some of the others maybe.
-
For me, each game is a new challenge, which has to be dealt with rationally and systematically. At that time, every other thought fades into oblivion.
-
We are expanded by tears, we are told, not reduced by them.
