Michael Ondaatje Quotes

• There was always, he thought, this pleasure ahead of him, an ace of joy up his sleeve so he could say you can do anything to me, take everything away, put me in prison, but I will know [her] when we are old.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Topics in Uncategorized

• This was the time in her life that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell. They became half her world.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Time, World, Books, Reading

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Books

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

  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

• To write about someone like myself would be very limiting.

  Michael Ondaatje

• It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you’re not.

  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

• As a writer, one is busy with archaeology.

  Michael Ondaatje

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

  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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• When you’re writing, it’s as if you’re within a kind of closed world.

  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

• You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel.

  Michael Ondaatje

• It’s a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.

  Michael Ondaatje

• I don’t see novels ending with any real sense of closure.

  Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje (28)

Birth:	12th September, 1943
Nationality:	Canadian, Sri Lankan
Profession:	Novelist

Related Authors

• Tom Holt
• Leonid Andreyev
• Andreas Eschbach
• David Zindell
• Julia Spencer-Fleming
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Jeanette Winterson
• Paul Goodman
• Elizabeth Peters
• Arthur Machen

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 21st December

Births

• 1966 - Kiefer Sutherland
• 1870 - Sir Patrick Duncan
• 1947 - Zoe Lofgren
• 1503 - Nostradamus
• 1892 - Rebecca West

Deaths

• 1992 - Stella Adler
• 2001 - David Swift
• 1935 - Kurt Tucholsky
• 1889 - Joseph Barber Lightfoot
• 1958 - Lion Feuchtwanger