When you're writing, it's as if you're within a kind of closed world. — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
Read him slowly, dear girl, you must read Kipling slowly. Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
When I write my novels I don't really have a huge plan beforehand; I don't have the whole plot and architecture, so… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
There's a lot of thievery involved in writing. You're breaking into other people's spaces and other people's stories. — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
I see myself as someone who's been saved by writing. God knows what I would have been, become or how I would… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
It's a discovery of a story when I write a book, a case of inching ahead on each page and discovering what's… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
When I began to write novels, I wanted to keep that element of interaction with the reader that exists in poetry, not… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
As someone who writes novels that are often set in other periods of time or other ages or other landscapes, there's a… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not. — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
People don't write about kids; you have to give them a lot of freedom, and that causes anarchy and that causes farce. — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again. — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
If she were a writer she would collect her pencils and notebooks and favourite cat and write in bed. Strangers and lovers… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
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.… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
I think precision in writing goes hand in hand with not trying to say everything. You try and say two-thirds, so the… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow. — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
“In spite of this, our table's status on the Oronsay continued to be minimal, while those at the Captain's Table were constantly toasting to… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
He will hear the rain before he feels it, a clicking on the dry grass, on the olive leaves. — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
“Whenever her father was alone with a dog in a house he would lean over and smell the skin at the base of its… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
“...those who had risked everything at a riverbend on a left turn and so discovered a fortune.” — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
“All over the world there must be people like us, Anna had said then, wounded in some way by falling in love - seemingly… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
Her father had taught her about hands. About a dog's paws. Whenever her father was alone with a dog in a house he would… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power. Nothing much of lasting value ever happens at… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
From this point on, she whispered, we will either find or lose our souls. — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
“You know it is the most relaxed thing when you when you sit with a best friend and you know there is nothing you… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
“There was no control except the " mood of his power... and it is for this reason it is good you never heard him… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
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… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
