quote · Legacy record
Read him slowly, dear girl, you must read Kipling slowly. Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural pauses. He is a writer who used pen and ink. He looked up from the page a lot, I believe, stared through his window and listened to birds, as most writers who are alone do. Some do not know the names of birds, though he did. Your eye is too quick and North American. Think about the speed of his pen. What an appalling, barnacled old first paragraph it is otherwise.
Read him slowly, dear girl, you must read Kipling slowly. Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural pauses. He is a writer who used pen and ink. He looked up from the page a lot, I believe, stared through his window and listened to birds, as most writers who are alone do. Some do not know the names of birds, though he did. Your eye is too quick and North American. Think about the speed of his pen. What an appalling, barnacled old first paragraph it is otherwise.
Approximate author period: c. 1943 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Michael Ondaatje
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1943 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1943; activity date not established; Wikidata Q313593, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q313593 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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- Contributor-provided quotation collection
Supplied reference C; CSV row 64659; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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