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Michael Ondaatje Quotes
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Type: Author Quotes Category: Canadian Author Quotes Date of Birth: September 12, 1943 Nationality: Canadian Find on Amazon: Michael Ondaatje Related Authors: Larry Wall A. E. van Vogt John Ralston Saul Jane Rule Thomas Chandler Haliburton Carol Shields Gabrielle Roy |
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 To write about someone like myself would be very limiting. Michael Ondaatje Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous. Michael Ondaatje When you're writing, it's as if you're within a kind of closed world. Michael Ondaatje You don't want to write your own opinion, you don't want to just represent yourself, but represent yourself through someone else. Michael Ondaatje You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel. Michael Ondaatje You're getting everyone's point of view at the same time, which, for me, is the perfect state for a novel: a cubist state, the cubist novel. Michael Ondaatje |
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