“Seas move away, why not lovers? The harbours of Ephesus, the rivers of...” — Michael Ondaatje Quote

“Seas move away, why not lovers? The harbours of Ephesus, the rivers of Heraclitus disappear and are replaced by estuaries of silt. The wife of Candaules becomes the wife of Gyges. Libraries burn.”

“The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat.”

“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.”

“I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.”

“It's an odd state to be in, blowing the whistle on your home country.”

“-I think you are inhuman. If I leave you, who will you go to? Would you find another lover?”

“That, in fact, nothing is as simple as it seems, or, more, nothing is at all as it seems, and usually older. That this ground could have been carried by the wind before settling here.”

“Take love to people and teach them to abide by the principles of God”

“Art belongs to everybody and nobody. Art belongs to all time and no time. Art belongs to those who create it and those who savour it [...] Art is the whisper of history, heard above the noise of time.”

“The pathway traced with blood and tears,”

“The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here.”

“It is vain futility to analyze the algebra of time.”