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
A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands, knowing it is something that feeds him more than water.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the profound value of absence and longing over physical sustenance.
In this quote, Michael Ondaatje illustrates the idea that the experience of absence can be more nourishing to the human spirit than even the necessities of life, such as water. The metaphor of a man in a desert highlights how, in times of scarcity, the emotional and existential dimensions of life can provide deeper fulfillment and meaning than mere physical survival, suggesting that what we miss and long for can shape our identity and enrich our existence.
Themes
AbsenceLongingDesertDepthNourishment
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about embracing hardships.
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
I have spent weeks in the desert, forgetting to look at the moon, he says, as a married man may spend days never looking into the face of his wife. These are not sins of omission but signs of pre-occuopation.
Michael OndaatjeRead
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