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.
Michael OndaatjeRead
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.
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
All quotes βWhen 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.
Michael OndaatjeRead
Water is the exile, carried back in cans and flasks, the ghost between your hands and your mouth.
Michael OndaatjeRead
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.
Michael OndaatjeRead
You don't want to write your own opinion, you don't want to just represent yourself, but represent yourself through someone else.
Michael OndaatjeRead
A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands, knowing it is something that feeds him more than water.
Michael OndaatjeRead
Similar quotes
Bad conduct soils the finest ornament more than filth.
PlautusRead
The pain of problems is a call to find solutions rather than a reason for unhappiness and inaction, so it's silly, pointless, and harmful to be upset at the problems and choices that come at you (though itβs understandable).
Ray DalioRead
...ambition without pious restraint must end in failure, often involving in its ruin that beautiful reverence which solaces common men for the obscurity and poverty of their lot.
Russell KirkRead
Sober up, and you see and hear everything you'd been able to avoid hearing before.
Sammy Davis, Jr.Read
To some people, not caring is supposed to be cool, commenting is more interesting than doing, and everything is judged and then disposed of in, like, five minutes. I'm not interested in those kinds of people. I like the person who commits and goes all in and takes big swings and then maybe fails or looks stupid; who jumps and falls down, rather than the person who points at the person who fell, and laughs. But I do sometimes laugh when people fall down.
Amy PoehlerRead
Young girls are sad. They like to be; it makes them feel strong.
A. S. ByattRead