A Quote by Michael Ondaatje

...sometimes we enter art to hide within it. It is where we can go to save ourselves, where a third-person voice protects us. — © Michael Ondaatje
...sometimes we enter art to hide within it. It is where we can go to save ourselves, where a third-person voice protects us.
Sometimes we drug ourselves with dreams of new ideasl The head will save us. The brain alone will set us free. But there are no new ideas waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves--along with the renewed courage to try them out.
The way that I see third person is it's actually first person. Writing for me is all voice work. Third person narrative is just as character-driven as first person narrative for me in terms of a voice. I don't write very much in third person.
There came one and knocked at the door of the Beloved. And a voice answered and said, 'Who is there?' The lover replied, 'It is I.' 'Go hence,' returned the voice; 'there is no room within for thee and me.' Then came the lover a second time and knocked and again the voice demanded, 'Who is there?' He answered, 'It is thou.' 'Enter,' said the voice, 'for I am within.
The blessing hands of Christ are like a roof that protects us. But at the same time, they are a gesture of opening up, tearing the world open so that heaven my enter in, may become "present" within it.
We cannot have peace on Earth until we learn to speak with one voice. That voice must be the voice of reason, the voice of compassion, the voice of love. It is the voice of divinity within us.
Grammar and logic free language from being at the mercy of the tone of voice. Grammar protects us against misunderstanding the sound of an uttered name; logic protects us against what we say have double meaning.
As a listener, we're looking for that person who kind of excites the molecules within us - who knows how to tell the story that resonates deeply to our core and almost prompts us into action. Fats Waller has been that person for decades. When people need a lift, sometimes they go to him. I know I do.
Although our moral conscience is a part of our consciousness, we do not feel ourselves on an equality with it. In this voice which makes itself heard only to give us orders and establish prohibitions, we cannot recognize our own voices; the very tone in which it speaks to us warns us that it expresses something within us that is not of ourselves.
The Voice did not consider itself a conventional magazine. It took me awhile to realize that it was named The Voice for a reason. They wanted voices. At the time, good magazine stories were still believed to be written in the third person based on the false belief they were more objective. Of course some conventional stories require third person, but in the really interesting stories - the ones I got do to at The Voice and Esquire - were about subjectivity, subjectivities.
Sometimes in life, we have to go backward a certain distance in order to go forwards. If we have conflicts within ourselves that we have not resolved, then we will find ourselves living inside of these conflicts, not in the realms of light.
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go. Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.
We should not be upset that others hide the truth from us, when we hide it so often from ourselves.
We're not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.
When we sit, we open our own treasure house. Rather than do this, however, most of us first seek to find the treasures another person can provide. We calculate their value to us. When we approach relationships in this manner, we are coming as beggars, seeing the other as a source of supply. When we can enter a relationship with our treasure house already open, there is no end to the wonders we can find, both within and between ourselves and another.
I think we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else's life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.
In pragmatic terms, our challenge is less to save the earth from ourselves and more to save ourselves from an earth that, if pushed too far, has ample power to rock, burn, and shake us off completely.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!