It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow. Michael Ondaatje More Quotes by Michael Ondaatje More Quotes From Michael Ondaatje A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch. Michael Ondaatje torches use blow You must talk to me, Caravaggio. Or am I just a book? Something to be read, some creature to be tempted out of a loch and shot full of morphine, full of corridors, lies, loose vegetation, pockets of stones. Michael Ondaatje stones book lying I thought I was being loved because I was being altered. Michael Ondaatje altered being-loved There are betrayals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace. The new lovers enter the habits of the other. Things are smashed, revealed in a new light. This is done with nervous or tender sentences, although the heart is an organ of fire. Michael Ondaatje betrayal heart war Snap. Lady with dog. Lady on sofa half-naked. Snap. Naked lady. Lady next to dresser. Lady at window. Snap. Lady on balcony sunlight. (On New Orleans photographer E. J. Bellocq) Michael Ondaatje naked new-orleans dog Her life with others no longer interests him. He wants only her stalking beauty, her theatre of expressions. He wants the minute secret reflection between them, the depth of field minimal, their foreignness intimate like two pages of a closed book. Michael Ondaatje reflection romantic book Jung was absolutely right about one thing. We are occupied by gods. The mistake is to identify with the god occupying you. Michael Ondaatje jung one-thing mistake What night gave Rafael was a formlessness in which everything had a purpose. As if darkness had a hidden musical language. Michael Ondaatje music darkness night One of the things that happens in novels it's almost like a continual debate with yourself. That's why you're writing the book. It's why you create characters: so you can argue with yourself. Michael Ondaatje writing character book We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie. Michael Ondaatje loss heart love Love is so small it can tear itself through the eye of a needle Michael Ondaatje tears eye love-is He will hear the rain before he feels it, a clicking on the dry grass, on the olive leaves. Michael Ondaatje olives dry rain That's one of the great sadnesses of any life - knowing what you know now and then remembering what you did not know then. Michael Ondaatje sadness knowing remember As someone who writes novels that are often set in other periods of time or other ages or other landscapes, there's a certain element of research I have to do, and often, the more laconic people are, the more interesting they become. Michael Ondaatje writing people interesting Nowadays he doesn't think of his wife, though he knows he can turn around and evoke every move of her, describe any aspect of her, the weigh of her wrist on his heart during the night. Michael Ondaatje heart night moving I have spent weeks in the desert, forgetting to look at the moon, he says, as a married man may spend days never looking into the face of his wife. These are not sins of omission but signs of pre-occuopation. Michael Ondaatje omission moon men You are doing something over here and over there someone is telling you a joke, or giving you an important piece of information about sanitation, and no matter how weird the other subject is, there is a connection, or you can make a connection. I’ve always loved history and history is collage, it is a juxtaposition of the good and the bad and the strange, and how you place those sentences together changes the whole mood of a history. Michael Ondaatje important together giving He has been disassembled by her. And if she has brought him to this, what has he brought her to? Michael Ondaatje has-beens ifs You think that you are an iconoclast, but you’re not. You just move, or replace what you cannot have. If you fail at something, you retreat into something else. Nothing changes you.... I left you because I knew I could never change you. You would stand in the room so still sometimes, as if the greatest betrayal of yourself would be to reveal one more inch of your character. Michael Ondaatje betrayal breakup break-up Do you understand the sadness of geography? Michael Ondaatje geography sadness
