Michael Ondaatje Quotes
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.
Quotes to Explore
-
As for my diet, I try to eat lean, clean and healthy - nothing too surprising. And I avoid too much meat or dairy because they slow you down.
-
The media's gotten lazy. They don't check anything out. You report what he reports.
-
Fiction about mining has a long tradition - Emile Zola's 'Germinal' and Upton Sinclair's 'King Coal' come to mind - and most readers will be aware of the industry's harsh conditions.
-
I have a vast curiosity about our universe, our origins, and its probable future.
-
What I'm interested in is the fascinating image of young leaders... you know, young people leading in different fields. You see athletes and people in gymnastics, where the requirement is that you are supple and very, very young... 11... and by the time you're 14, you're already over the hill.
-
I chose films made by people I wanted to work with, about subject matter I thought was intriguing.
-
The coming-of-age story has sort of become a joke. It's something to capitalize on, and that is painful because when you are coming of age - when you are going through something like that - the genre is so meaningful.
-
Only people who have been allowed to practise freedom can have the grown-up look in their eyes.
-
I am a free lover. I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please.
-
I have to say I am a 'Strictly' fan, which is why I am in it. I've always watched it for years. I am not an 'X Factor' fan, and I just think it is a different show. One is about learning something new and having a great time, and the other is rather desperate.
-
My interest in Virtual Reality (VR) films began for me when I began a fellowship with MIT's Open Documentary Lab. It was a profound experience to be on MIT's campus one day a week and to enter a new world of storytelling where breaking convention and traditional methods were expected. This was deeply challenging and inspiring.
-
Obama's ascendancy unhinged the radical right, offering a unified target to competing camps of racial, nativist and religious animus.
-
It really means a lot that I won the gold medal - but I woke up the next morning expecting to feel different. I felt the same.
-
Supporting iconic, growth-oriented industries, combined with tax policies that encourage small business growth and investment, represents a potent combination and is the basis of our entire administration.
-
I think the people should have a right to boycott whoever they want to boycott without the government making them into criminals and try to protect corporations from people. They should protect people from corporations.
-
Voters memories will fade some.
-
I don't want to pretend I'm any cooler or smarter than I am.
-
Pitch tip: Speak confidently about your product, but be able to admit when you need more information, and get it to the people you're pitching quickly after the meeting.
-
But if we learn to think of it as anticipation, as learning, as growing, if we think of the time we spend waiting for the big things of life as an opportunity instead of a passing of time, what wonderful horizons open out!
-
I noticed in the front row a small, very pale, almost white man, old, tremendously alert, old in the only way I love old age, namely more alive for all the years, more attentive, more unrelenting, expectant and ready, as though he still had to make up his mind about most things and must not disregard anything.
-
In a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.
-
In my view, there is nothing more vicious and outrageous than the abuse, exploitation and harm of the most vulnerable members of our society, and I firmly believe that our nation's laws and resources need to reflect the seriousness of these terrible crimes.
-
The role of a museum of modern art is to make a good selection and identify what we believe to be the coming movements, and that requires taste.
-
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.
