Michael Ondaatje

Men had always been the reciters of poetry in the desert. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#poetry #men

A blind lover, don't know what I love till I write it out ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#writing #love

Nowadays he doesn't think of his wife, though he knows he can turn around and evoke every move of her, describe any aspect of her, the weigh of her wrist on his heart during the night. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#love #memory #love

Before the real city could be seen it had to be imagined, the way rumours and tall tales were a kind of charting. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#toronto #toronto-literature #imagination

How can you smile as though your whole life hasn't capsized ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#life

I am someone who has a cold heart. If I am beside a great grief I throw barriers up so the loss cannot go too deep or too far. There is a wall instantly in place, and it will not fall. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#heart #life #life

We own the country we grow up in, or we are aliens and invaders. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#experience

I am not in love with him, I am in love with ghosts. So is he, he's in love with ghosts. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#love #the-past #love

-I think you are inhuman. If I leave you, who will you go to? Would you find another lover? I said nothing. -Deny it,damn you! ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#love #michael-ondaatje #novel #romance #the-english-patient

The important thing is to be able to live in a place or a situation where you must use your sixth sense all the time. ↗

— Michael Ondaatje

#sixth-sense #life