Michael Ondaatje Quotes

What is vanity but the longing to survive?

One can never outlive one's vanity.

I was trying to be 27 at age 47, but God had to get rid of my vanity. I had trouble letting go of the old Lex physically. My human fleshly nature didn't want to let go of what had come to be billed as 'The Total Package.' I guess God had to help me get rid of the last remnant of that vanity and pride.

For six months I'd do movies and make it all about me. Then the other six months, it's not about me and it doesn't matter what my hair looks like or what anything looks like.

Nothing ages as poorly as a beautiful woman's ego.

There could be no extreme vanity in my recognition of myself, if in fact there could be any at all.

Actors and actresses who say they never go to see their own pictures are talking through their hats. You don't have to be a Freud to know that the most fascinating person in the world - actors or anybody - is yourself.

It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity; because impossible to divest one's self of self-love.

Edith Sitwell's interest in art was largely confined to portraits of herself.

Vanity and dignity are incompatible with each other; vain women are almost sure to be vulnerable.

I can't afford to die. It would wreck my image.

We believe, first and foremost, what makes us feel that we are fine fellows.

I wonder if the course of narcissism through the ages would have been any different had Narcissus first peered into a cesspool. He probably did.

I picture my epitaph: 'Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.

A vain man finds his account in speaking good or evil of himself.

I have been vain since birth. I expected other people to like what I did, although my vanity has definitely diminished over the years.

As the saying goes, I want to be the best-looking corpse there is.

I've always been a narcissist.

Self-consciousness is really a form of egotism.

Narcissism is the part of my personality that I am the least proud of, and I certainly don't like to see it highlighted in everybody else I meet.

I do not recall spending long hours in front of a mirror loving my reflection.

Why in the world would anyone want to photograph an old woman like me?

Vanity is but the surface.

Well, I have never, ever Googled myself.

I got too caught up in Hollywood, being so into myself and my image.