Author: Michael Ondaatje

Cites

• NULL (5)
  • IN: The English Patient (1992) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: "Most of you, I am sure, remember the tragic circumstances of the death of Geoffrey Clifton at Gilf Kebir, followed later by the disappearance of his wife, Katherine Clifton, which took place during the 1939 desert expedition in search of Zerzura." "I cannot begin this meeting tonight without referring very sympathetically to those tragic occurences..." "The lecture this evening..."
    FROM: From the minutes of the Geographical Society meeting, (NULL), NULL, UK
  • IN: The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems (1989) Fiction, Poetry, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Deep colour and big, shaggy nose. Rather a jumbly, untidy sort of wine, with fruitiness shooting off one way, firmness another, and body pushing about underneath. It will be as comfortable and comforting as the 1961 Nuits St Georges when it has pulled its ends in and settled down.
    FROM: Magazine description of a wine, (1967), Magazine, NULL
  • IN: Warlight (2018) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Most of the great battles are fought in the creases of topographical maps.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, NULL
  • IN: Anil's Ghost (2000) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: In search of a job I came to Bogala I went down the pits seventy-two fathoms deep Invisible as a fly, not seen from the pit head Only when I return to the surface Is my life safe... Blessed be the scaffolding deep down in the shaft Blessed be the life wheel on the mine's pit head Blessed be the chain attached to the life wheel...
    FROM: Miner's folk song, Sri Lanka, (None), Song, Sri Lanka
  • IN: In the Skin of a Lion (1987) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: The joyful will stoop with sorrow, and when you have gone to the earth I will let my hair grow long for your sake, I will wander through the wilderness in the skin of a lion.
    FROM: The Epic of Gilgamesh, (-1800), Poem, Mesopotamia
• Joseph Conrad (1)
  • IN: The Cat's Table (2011) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: And this is how I see the East... I see if always from a small boat -- not a light, not a stir, not a sound. We conversed in low whispers, as if afraid to wake up the land. It is all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea.
    FROM: Youth, (1898), Short Story, Ukraine/ England
• John Berger (1)
  • IN: In the Skin of a Lion (1987) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: Never again will a single story be told as though it were the only one.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, NULL

Cited by

• Paul Yoon (1)
  • IN: Snow Hunters (2013) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: "Children in the trees, one falling into the grip of another"
    FROM: Driving with Dominic in the Southern Province We See Hints of the Circus, (1998), Poem, Sri-Lanka/Canada
• Jason Quinn Malott (1)
  • IN: The Evolution of Shadows (2009) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: There are betrayals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace.
    FROM: The English Patient, (1992), Novel, Sri Lanka/Canada
• Amrita Kumar (1)
  • IN: Damage (2009) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: I have lived in the desert for years and I have come to believe in such things. It is a place of pockets. The trompe l'oeil of time and water. The jackal with one eye that looks back and one that regards the path you consider taking. In his jaws are pieces of the past he delivers to you, and when all of that time is fully discovered it will prove to have been already known.
    FROM: The English Patient, (1992), Novel, Sri Lanka/Canada
• Rodrico Fresán (1)
  • IN: The Invented Part (2014) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: There's a story, always ahead of you. Barely existing. Only gradually do you attach yourself to it and feed it. You discover the carapace that will contain and test your chracter. You will find in this way the path of your life. [...] You learn to alter your life. [...] Everything in plain sight.
    FROM: The Cat's Table, (2011), Novel, Sri Lanka/Canada
• Shobha Rao (1)
  • IN: An Unrestored Woman (2016) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.
    FROM: The English Patient, (1992), Novel, Sri Lanka/Canada