But we were interested in how our lives could mean something to the past. We sailed into the past. Michael Ondaatje More Quotes by Michael Ondaatje More Quotes From Michael Ondaatje When I began to write novels, I wanted to keep that element of interaction with the reader that exists in poetry, not just for the reader to be shepherded from A to B to C to D but to participate, and the less you say sometimes, the better it is. You know, it's the way when someone speaks very quietly, you move forward so you can listen more carefully. Michael Ondaatje writing sometimes moving ...sometimes we enter art to hide within it. It is where we can go to save ourselves, where a third-person voice protects us. Michael Ondaatje voice sometimes art She entered the story knowing she would emerge from it feeling she had been immersed in the lives of others, in plots that stretched back twenty years, her body full of sentences and moments, as if awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams. Michael Ondaatje dream sleep years All I ever wanted was a world without maps. Michael Ondaatje maps life world Moments before sleep are when she feels most alive, leaping across fragments of the day, bringing each moment into the bed with her like a child with schoolbooks and pencils. The day seems to have no order until these times, which are like a ledger for her, her body full of stories and situations. Michael Ondaatje sleep order children What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at the head table, held together by a familiar rhetoric. Those who already have power continue to glide along the familiar rut they have made for themselves. Michael Ondaatje important secret interesting Don't we forgive everything of a lover? We forgive selfishness, desire, guile. As long as we are the motive for it...There are some European words you can never translate properly into another language. Michael Ondaatje forgiving desire long I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door. Michael Ondaatje novel writing doors Why are you not smarter? It's only the rich who can't afford to be smart. They're compromised. They got locked years ago into privilege. They have to protect their belongings. No one is meaner than the rich. Trust me. But they have to follow the rules of their shitty civilised world. They declare war, they have honour, and they can't leave. But you two. We three. We're free. Michael Ondaatje smart war years From this point on, she whispered, we will either find or lose our souls. Michael Ondaatje loses soul life Every night I cut out my heart. But in the morning it was full again Michael Ondaatje cutting heart morning I often need a limited space. It's like having a house to roam around in and reinvent and have things to happen in, kind of like a French farce. Doors opening, doors closing, new people arriving, and disappearing, and so forth. Michael Ondaatje space doors people Everything is biographical, Lucian Freud says. What we make, why it is made, how we draw a dog, who it is we are drawn to, why we cannot forget. Everything is collage, even genetics. There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border we cross. Michael Ondaatje forget-everything borders dog A novel is a mirror walking down a road Michael Ondaatje novel mirrors walking 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 stories might moving I see myself as someone who's been saved by writing. God knows what I would have been, become or how I would have ended up without it. Michael Ondaatje god-knows saved writing When I write my novels I don't really have a huge plan beforehand; I don't have the whole plot and architecture, so the story is sort of discovered as I write it. Michael Ondaatje plot stories writing 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 writing discovery book It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not. Michael Ondaatje perception views writing Over the years, confusing fragments, lost corners of stories, have a clearer meaning when seen in a new light, a different place. Michael Ondaatje confusing light years
