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
She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the deep appreciation for words and their power to provide clarity and understanding in life.
In this quote by Michael Ondaatje, the speaker reflects on a person's lifelong affection for words, highlighting how they have been a source of clarity and structure for her. Words are portrayed as essential tools that not only convey meaning but also shape one's perception of the world, illustrating the profound impact language has on an individual's thoughts and experiences.
Themes
WordsClarityLanguageUnderstandingPower
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of storytelling, this quote can emphasize the impact of words in shaping narratives.
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
The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.
Italo CalvinoRead
Literature sucks you into another psyche. So the creation of empathy necessarily influences how you'll behave to other people.
Barbara KingsolverRead
Literature has as one of its principal allures that it tells you something about life that life itself can't tell you. I just thought literature is a thing that human beings do.
Richard FordRead
The poet can only write the poems; it takes the reader to complete the meaning.
Nikki GiovanniRead
THE WRITER can get free of his writing only by using it, that is, by reading oneself. As if the aim of writing were to use what is already written as a launching pad for reading the writing to come. Moreover, what he has written is read in the process, hence constantly modified by his reading. The book is an unbearable totality. I write against a background of facets.
Edmond JabesRead
Most of the female characters I admire come from science fiction and fantasy, maybe because there's more permission to shake up gender roles in genre.
Leigh BardugoRead