A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.
Michael Ondaatje

As a writer, one is busy with archaeology.
Michael Ondaatje

I don't have a plan for a story when I sit down to write. I would get quite bored carrying it out.
Michael Ondaatje

I don't see novels ending with any real sense of closure.
Michael Ondaatje

I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door.
Michael Ondaatje

I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.
Michael Ondaatje

I'm a Canadian citizen. But I always want to feel at home in Sri Lanka. I'm a member of both countries.
Michael Ondaatje

In the book the relationship with Katharine and Almasy is sort of only in the patient's mind.
Michael Ondaatje

It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.
Michael Ondaatje

It's a discovery of a story when I write a book, a case of inching ahead on each page and discovering what's beyond in the darkness, beyond where you're writing.
Michael Ondaatje

It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.
Michael Ondaatje

It's an odd state to be in, blowing the whistle on your home country.
Michael Ondaatje

It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.
Michael Ondaatje

Once I've discovered the story, I might restructure it, maybe move things around, set up a clue that something is going to happen later, but that happens much later in an editorial capacity.
Michael Ondaatje

Research can be a big clunker. It's difficult to know how you can make the historical light.
Michael Ondaatje

Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again.
Michael Ondaatje

That's Anil's path. She grows up in Sri Lanka, goes and gets educated abroad, and through fate or chance gets brought back by the Human Rights Commission to investigate war crimes.
Michael Ondaatje

The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human. Meander if you want to get to town.
Michael Ondaatje

The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat.
Michael Ondaatje

The past is still, for us, a place that is not safely settled.
Michael Ondaatje