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.
About Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatjeis a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer and essayist.
Ondaatje’s literary career began with his poetry in 1967, publishing The Dainty Monsters, and then in 1970 the critically acclaimed The Collected Works of Billy the Kid.
More quotes from Michael Ondaatje
Research can be a big clunker. It’s difficult to know how you can make the historical light.
Canadian novelist and poet
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.
Canadian novelist and poet
I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.
Canadian novelist and poet
To write about someone like myself would be very limiting.
Canadian novelist and poet
You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel.
Canadian novelist and poet
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.
Canadian novelist and poet
It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you’re not.
Canadian novelist and poet
As a writer, one is busy with archaeology.
Canadian novelist and poet
It’s an odd state to be in, blowing the whistle on your home country.
Canadian novelist and poet
I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door.
Canadian novelist and poet
It’s why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.
Canadian novelist and poet
You don’t want to write your own opinion, you don’t want to just represent yourself, but represent yourself through someone else.
Canadian novelist and poet
I’m a Canadian citizen. But I always want to feel at home in Sri Lanka. I’m a member of both countries.
Canadian novelist and poet
The past is still, for us, a place that is not safely settled.
Canadian novelist and poet
A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.
Canadian novelist and poet
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.
Canadian novelist and poet
In the book the relationship with Katharine and Almasy is sort of only in the patient’s mind.
Canadian novelist and poet
I don’t have a plan for a story when I sit down to write. I would get quite bored carrying it out.
Canadian novelist and poet
It’s a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.
Canadian novelist and poet
Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again.
Canadian novelist and poet
I don’t see novels ending with any real sense of closure.
Canadian novelist and poet
When you’re writing, it’s as if you’re within a kind of closed world.
Canadian novelist and poet
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.
Canadian novelist and poet
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.
Canadian novelist and poet
Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous.
Canadian novelist and poet
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.
Canadian novelist and poet