Michael Ondaatje Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. -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! The English Patient

2. I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die. And I thought if I was going to die I would die with you.Someone like you, young as I am, I saw so many dying near me in the last year. I didn’t feel scared. Icertainly wasn’t brave just now. I thought to myself, We have this villa this grass, we should have laindown together, you in my arms, before we died. I wanted to touch that bone at your neck, collarbone,it’s like a small hard wing under your skin. I wanted to place my fingers against it. I’ve always liked fleshthe colour of rivers and rocks or like the brown eye of a Susan, do you know what that flower is? Haveyou seen them? I am so tired, Kip, I want to sleep. I want to sleep under this tree, put my eye againstyour collarbone I just want to close my eyes without thinking of others, want to find the crook of a treeand climb into it and sleep. What a careful mind! To know which wire to cut. How did you know? Youkept saying I don’t know I don’t know, but you did. Right? Don’t shake, you have to be a still bed forme, let me curl up as if you were a good grandfather I could hug, I love the word ‘curl,’ such a slowword, you can’t rush it... The English Patient

3. We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie. The Cat's Table

4. Julguei que ia morrer. Queria morrer. E julguei que se fosse morrer ia morrer contigo. Rapazes como tu, jovens como eu…vi morrer tantos ao pé de mim durante o ano passado! Não tive medo nenhum. Não foi coragem o que ainda agora me fez ficar aqui. Pensei com os meus botões: "Temos esta cama, esta erva, devíamos ter-nos deitado juntados, abraçados, antes de morrer". Apeteceu-me tocar-te nesse osso do pescoço, a clavícula, que parece uma asa pequena e dura debaixo da pele. Apeteceu-me afagá-la com os dedos. Sempre gostei de corpos da cor dos rios e das pedras, da cor do olho castanho de uma susana, conheces essa flor? Já viste alguma? Estou tão cansada Kip, só me apetece dormir. Apetece-me dormir debaixo desta árvore, de cara encostada à tua clavícula, apetece-me fechar os olhos, sem pensar em mais ninguém, encontrar um nicho de árvore, trepar lá para dentro e dormir. Que espírito meticuloso! Saber que fio hás de cortar. Como é que soubeste? Foste dizendo não sei, não sei, mas sabias. Não foi? Não tremas, tens de ser uma cama sossegada para mim, deixa-me aninhar-me, abraçar-te como se fosses um avozinho, adiro a palavra "aninhar", tão lenta, não se pode apressá-la. The English Patient

5. Men had always been the reciters of poetry in the desert. The English Patient

6. 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. The English Patient