Quotes from book
The English Patient

The English Patient
Michael Ondaatje

The English Patient is a 1992 novel by Michael Ondaatje. The book follows four dissimilar people brought together at an Italian villa during the Italian Campaign of World War II. The four main characters are: an unrecognisably burned man — the eponymous patient, presumed to be English; his Canadian Army nurse, a Sikh British Army sapper, and a Canadian thief. The story occurs during the North African Campaign and centres on the incremental revelations of the patient's actions prior to his injuries, and the emotional effects of these revelations on the other characters. The book won the 1992 Booker Prize, the 2018 Golden Man Booker, and the Governor General's Award.

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“I have spent weeks in the desert, forgetting to look at the moon, he says, as a married man may spend days never looking into the face of his wife. These are not sins of omission but signs of pre-occuopation.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

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“… the heart is an organ of fire.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Michael Ondaatje photo

“He knows that the only way he can accept losing her is if he can continue to hold her or be held by her. If they can somehow nurse each other out of this. Not with a wall.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

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“Could you fall in love with her if she wasn't smarter than you? I mean, she may not be smarter than you. But isn't it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? Think now.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

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“A novel is a mirror walking down a road”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Michael Ondaatje photo

“You built your walls too, she tells him. So I have my wall. She says it glittering in a beauty he cannot stand. She with her beautiful clothes with her pale face that laughs at everyone who smiles at her…”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

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“If she were a writer she would collect her pencils and notebooks and favourite cat and write in bed. Strangers and lovers would never get past the locked door.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Michael Ondaatje photo

“Her life with others no longer interests him. He wants only her stalking beauty, her theatre of expressions. He wants the minute secret reflection between them, the depth of field minimal, their foreignness intimate like two pages of a closed book.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient