“How can you smile as though your whole life hasn't capsized”
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Famous Michael Ondaatje Quotes
“Do you understand the sadness of geography?”
Source: The English Patient
Source: The English Patient: A Novel
“In Sri Lanka a well-told lie is worth a thousand facts.”
Source: Running in the Family
Source: Divisadero
Source: Divisadero
“It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.”
“Half a page--and the morning is already ancient.”
Source: Running in the Family
“Most of the time in our world, truth is just opinion.”
Source: Anil's Ghost
Source: The English Patient
“It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself.”
Source: The English Patient: Special Edition
Source: The English Patient: A Novel
Source: The English Patient
“In the book the relationship with Katharine and Almasy is sort of only in the patient's mind.”
Source: The English Patient
Source: The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
Source: The English Patient
“We keep wanting to save those who are forlorn in this world. It’s a male habit.”
“I thought I was being loved because I was being altered.”
Source: The Cat's Table
“It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.”
“It's an odd state to be in, blowing the whistle on your home country.”
“Some events take a lifetime to reveal their damage and influence.”
“I don't have a plan for a story when I sit down to write. I would get quite bored carrying it out.”
“What began it all was the bright bone of a dream I could hardly hold onto.”
Source: Running in the Family
“Sadness is very close to hate.”
Source: The English Patient
“Research can be a big clunker. It's difficult to know how you can make the historical light.”
“Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again.”
“The past is still, for us, a place that is not safely settled.”
“When you're writing, it's as if you're within a kind of closed world.”
“To write about someone like myself would be very limiting.”