A Quote by Michael Ondaatje

There was a time when mapmakers named the places they travelled through with the names of lovers rather than their own. — © Michael Ondaatje
There was a time when mapmakers named the places they travelled through with the names of lovers rather than their own.
They'd never been lovers, of course, not in the physical sense. But they'd been lovers as most of us manage, loving through expressions and gestures and the palm set softly upon the bruise at the necessary moment. Lovers by inclination rather than by lust. Lovers, that is, by love.
She [Venison] had never travelled and so could invent all kinds of strange places without being limited, as travelled people are, by knowledge of certain places only.
I'm very influenced by landscapes, not so much the way places look as the way the names sound. In this country we've got so many cultures, and the place names - the Spanish names and the Indian names, which are so incredibly musical.
I have this idea that every time we discover that the names we're being called are somehow keeping us less than free, we need to come up with new names for ourselves, and that the names we give ourselves must no longer reflect a fear of being labeled outsiders, must no longer bind us to a system that would rather see us dead.
There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.
I spent a long time trying to make it in the commercial world hoping that commercials would then lead to movies. That was a less-travelled path at the time, although it's very well-travelled now.
Time cannot children,poets,lovers tell- measure imagine,mystery,a kiss -not though mankind would rather know than feel
Like so many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts--census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to its own freeway.
I was born in Swansea in the Principality of Wales in September 1934 and named Clive William John Granger. The 'William John' names were traditional Granger boy's names, and my mother liked the name Clive because some popular musician at the time had it.
My fore-parts, as you so ineloquently put it, have names.” I pointed to my right breast. “This is Danger.” Then my left. “And this is Will Robinson. I would appreciate it if you addressed them accordingly.” After a long pause in which he took the time to blink several times, he asked, “You named your breasts?” I turned my back to him with a shrug. “I named my ovaries, too, but they don’t get out as much.
Some of the songs are inspired by personal things that have happened. Others have been inspired by other people's stories, you know, like someone that witnesses something and so I tell the story through my own eyes. And some songs are just about how I feel about the world and others about the places that we have travelled to.
What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.
Everybody can do something toward creating in his own environment kindly feelings rather than anger, reasonableness rather than hysteria, happiness rather than misery.
Lauren Goode and I have agreed that the next version of the Mac software - all of them are named after places in California - should be named either Bridgeport or Warwick.
The truth is, terrorism flourishes in places of injustice rather than in places of poverty.
I hope I'm able to achieve more on camera through stillness, through focus, through being quite careful to do less on every take, rather than more. So I'm reducing, rather than adding. Which hopefully is a good exercise. That's what I'd like to do.
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