"We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie."

Michael Ondaatje Literature See all quotes by Michael Ondaatje →

HuggingFace jstet/quotes-500k

React to this quote

More by Michael Ondaatje

“This last night we tear into each other, as if to wound, as if to find the key to everything before morning.”

“There are betrayals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace. The new lovers enter the habits of the other. Things are smashed, revealed in a new light. This is done with nervous or tender sentences, although the heart is an organ of fire.”

“I believe this. When we meet those we fall in love with, there is an aspect of our spirit that is historian, a bit of a pedant who reminisces or remembers a meeting when the other has passed by innocently…but all parts of the body must be ready for the other, all atoms must jump in one direction for desire to occur.”

Resonant Thoughts

"“You’ve a good heart,” she told him. “Sometimes that’s enough to see you safe wherever you go.” Then she shook her head. “But mostly, it’s not."

— Neil Gaiman

Literature1960–1996

#love

"It is better to curse the darkness than to light a candle, because, first of all, how much light is one candle going to shed anyway? And secondly, what is there to see that is so important? Whereas cu…"

— John S. Hall

Literature1960

#love

"My lover took away my robe of sin and I let it fall, rejoicing; then he plucked at my robe of virtue, but I was ashamed and alarmed and prevented him. It was not till he wrested it from me by force th…"

— Sri Aurobindo

Politics1872–1950

#love

": "A love of tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll forward."

— Winston Churchill

Politics1940–2010

#love