A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch. Michael Ondaatje More Quotes by Michael Ondaatje More Quotes From Michael Ondaatje You can see that the care he took defiling the beauty he had forced in them was as precise and clean as his good hands which at night had developed the negatives, floating the sheets in the correct acids and watching the faces and breasts and pubic triangles and sofas emerge. The making and destroying coming from the same source, same lust, same surgery his brain was capable of. (On New Orleans photographer E. J. Bellocq) Michael Ondaatje new-orleansnighthands 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 opinionwantwriting To write about someone like myself would be very limiting. Michael Ondaatje would-bewriting When you're writing, it's as if you're within a kind of closed world. Michael Ondaatje kindwritingworld You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel. Michael Ondaatje actionwantdrama Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous. Michael Ondaatje wrong-timedangerous What he would say, he cannot say to this woman whose openness is like a wound, whose youth is not mortal yet. He cannot alter what he loves most in her, her lack of compromise, where the romance of the poems she loves still sits with ease in the real world. Outside these qualities he knows there is no order in the world. Michael Ondaatje romancerealorder There was a time when mapmakers named the places they travelled through with the names of lovers rather than their own. Michael Ondaatje loversnames I am someone who has a cold heart. If I am beside a great grief I throw barriers up so the loss cannot go too deep or too far. There is a wall instantly in place, and it will not fall. Michael Ondaatje wallgrieffall You built your walls too, she tells him. So I have my wall. She says it glittering in a beauty he cannot stand. She with her beautiful clothes with her pale face that laughs at everyone who smiles at her. Michael Ondaatje clotheswallbeautiful all this Beethoven and rain Michael Ondaatje rain Some people you just had to embrace, in some way or another, had to bite into the muscle, to remain sane in their company. You needed to grab their hair and clutch it like a drowner so they would pull you into their midst. Otherwise they, walking casually down the street towards you, almost about to wave, would leap over a wall and be gone for months. Michael Ondaatje wallhandspeople It's an odd state to be in, blowing the whistle on your home country. Michael Ondaatje oddhomecountry He turns his back to the far shore and rows toward it. He can in this way travel away from, yet still see, his house....he feels he is riding a floating skeleton...Some birds in the almost-dark are flying as close to their reflections as possible. Michael Ondaatje skeletonsreflectiondark Githa Hariharan's fiction is wonderful-full of subtleties and humor and tenderness. Michael Ondaatje subtletywonderfulfiction He walked out of the hospital into the sun, into open air for the first time in months, out of the green-lit rooms that lay like glass in his mind. He stood there breathing everything in, the hurry of everyone. First, he thought, I need shoes with rubber on the bottom. I need gelato. Michael Ondaatje glassesairfood There's always been anger in the making of music or literature or dance. Michael Ondaatje emotionliterature The music of Gavin Bryars falls under no category. It is mongrel, full of sensuality and wit and is deeply moving. He is one of the few composers who can put slapstick and primal emotion alongside each other. He allows you to witness new wonders in the sounds around you by approaching them from a completely new angle. With a third ear maybe. Michael Ondaatje soundfallmoving As a writer, one is busy with archaeology. Michael Ondaatje archaeologybusy How can you smile as though your whole life hasn't capsized Michael Ondaatje whole-lifewhole
