Katrin Thompson > Katrin's Quotes

“The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

“Lying in bed would be an altogether supreme experience if one only had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

“To hurry through one’s leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

“My best friends are all either bottomless skeptics or quite uncontrollable believers . . . .”
― G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles

“I, too, overflow; my desires have invented new desires, my body knows unheard-of songs. Time and again I, too, have felt so full of luminous torrents that I could burst-burst with forms much more beautiful than those which are put up in frames and sold for a fortune. And I, too, said nothing, showed nothing; I didn't open my mouth, I didn't repaint my half of the world. I was ashamed. I was afraid, and I swallowed my shame and my fear. I said to myself: You are mad! What's the meaning of these waves, these floods, these outbursts? Where is the ebullient infinite woman who...hasn't been ashamed of her strength? Who, surprised and horrified by the fantastic tumult of her drives (for she was made to believe that a well-adjusted normal woman has a ...divine composure), hasn't accused herself of being a monster? Who, feeling a funny desire stirring inside her (to sing, to write, to dare to speak, in short, to bring out something new), hasn't thought that she was sick? Well, her shameful sickness is that she resists death, that she makes trouble.”
― Hélène Cixous

“She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“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.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“Every night I cut out my heart. But in the morning it was full again”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“A postcard. Neat handwriting fills the rectangle.

Half my days I cannot bear to touch you.
The rest of my time I feel like it doesn’t matter if I will ever see you again. It isn’t the morality, it’s how much you can bear.

No date. No name attached.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“She had always wanted words, she loved them, grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape. Whereas I thought words bent emotions like sticks in water.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

“It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.”
― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

“wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

“The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast.”
― Gabriel García Márquez