A Quote by Michael Ondaatje

A novel is a mirror walking down a road

Michael Ondaatje

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Down Mirror Novel Road Walking

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Michael Ondaatje
Canadian - Novelist
Born: September 12, 1943

Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.

Stendhal

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path. . .

Antonio Machado

A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.

Stendhal

I didn't jump a lot of trees because I didn't like heights. I liked getting a mirror and walking around with it facing the sky. I'd imagine I was walking in the tops of the trees and falling into the sky, or walking up the stairs whilst going down.

Beth Orton

You’re walking down life’s road, society’s foot is on your throat, every which way you turn you can’t get from under that foot. And you reach a fork in the road and you can either lie down and die, or insist upon your life.

Odetta

A novel is a mirror which passes over a highway. Sometimes it reflects to your eyes the blue of the skies, at others the churned-up mud of the road.

Stendhal

Most people who are on the road are pretty damaged. It's an escapist's life. It's not a life that forces you to look in the mirror at where you're at and what you're doing. It's one where you leave the mirror behind. I think that appeals to something in all of us. On the open road, all of your regrets are out the window.

Gavin Rossdale

If the road is beautiful, walk the road slowly; be a turtle, be a snail and even better than this: Stop walking; live the road fully!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

I'm really just trying to hash out the next two weeks of my life. So, something that is potentially four months down the road is not just a mile down the road for me, it's a million miles down the road.

Adam Carolla

As we're leaving the King's Arms Hotel after Sunday lunch, I watch a beautiful white dove walking down the wet road. A car approaches and the bird accidentally turns into the wheel rather than away from it. A gentle crunch. The car passes. A shape like a discarded napkin left in the road. Still perfectly white, no red stains, but bearing no relation anymore to the shape of a bird. A trail of white feathers flutter down the road after the car. The suddeness is very upsetting. That gentle crunch.

Antony Sher

My life is like driving down a road. I occasionally glance in the rearview mirror, but I'm not focused on the past or looking back anymore.

Scott Hall

For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.

Agnes Repplier

If you're working on a novel, whatever you do, don't say, 'I am almost finished with my novel.' It's worse than chanting Bloody Mary three times in front of a mirror.

Laura van den Berg

I love Richard Yates, his work, and the novel, Revolutionary Road. It's a devastating novel.

Michael Chabon

All novels attempt to cut neural routes through the brain, to convince us that down this road the true future of the novel lies.

Zadie Smith

I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous infinite scream of nature.

Edvard Munch

A Quote by Michael Ondaatje

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