azuire: (Default)
azuire ([personal profile] azuire) wrote in [community profile] literaryquotes2010-08-11 01:02 pm

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje



We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.

I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.

yifu: (a little sweet)

[personal profile] yifu 2010-08-11 05:22 am (UTC)(link)
One of my favorite books. Ondaatje can be so lyrical without coming across as pretentious.