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
You don't want to write your own opinion, you don't want to just represent yourself, but represent yourself through someone else.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the value of expressing oneself through the interpretations and perspectives of others.
Michael Ondaatje suggests that true expression often comes not just from a solitary voice, but rather through the lens of others' experiences and insights. When we allow ourselves to connect with and convey our thoughts through the narratives and voices of others, we can enrich our own identity and creativity, leading to a deeper understanding and resonance.
Themes
ExpressionIdentityCreativityPerspectiveVoice
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop, a participant could use this quote to discuss the importance of collaboration in creative writing.
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
A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands, knowing it is something that feeds him more than water.
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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