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're getting everyone's point of view at the same time, which for me, is the perfect state for a novel: a cubist state, the cubist novel.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote describes the ideal perspective for writing a novel as one that incorporates multiple viewpoints simultaneously, similar to cubist art.
Michael Ondaatje likens the experience of writing a novel to the principles of cubism in art, where multiple perspectives are presented at once. This approach allows for a richer and more complex narrative, capturing the intricacies of human experience and interaction, rather than adhering to a single linear perspective.
Themes
NovelPerspectiveCubismArtCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
During a writing workshop about character development, this quote could illustrate the importance of varied perspectives.
More from Michael Ondaatje
All quotes →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.
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
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