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What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by a familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along the familiar rut they have made for themselves.
Michael Ondaatje
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Interpretation

What this quote means

True significance often occurs away from the spotlight and power dynamics.

This quote by Michael Ondaatje suggests that the most important events and ideas often arise in hidden or overlooked places, rather than in the spotlight or at the center of power where people tend to conform to established norms. It emphasizes that genuine creativity and lasting value are frequently found outside of conventional hierarchies and familiar settings, where individuals are free to explore new possibilities and insights.

Themes

PowerValueSignificanceHiddenCreativity

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about innovation, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of exploring new ideas outside mainstream discussions.

More from Michael Ondaatje

Don't we forgive everything of a lover? We forgive selfishness, desire, guile. As long as we are the motive for it...There are some European words you can never translate properly into another language.
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When we are young we do not look into mirrors. It is when we are old, concerned with our name, our legend, what our lives will mean to the future. We become vain with the names we own, our claims to have been the first eyes, the strongest army, the cleverest merchant. It is when he is old that Narcissus wants a graven image of himself.
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Water is the exile, carried back in cans and flasks, the ghost between your hands and your mouth.
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You must talk to me, Caravaggio. Or am I just a book? Something to be read, some creature to be tempted out of a loch and shot full of morphine, full of corridors, lies, loose vegetation, pockets of stones.
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You don't want to write your own opinion, you don't want to just represent yourself, but represent yourself through someone else.
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A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands, knowing it is something that feeds him more than water.
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