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So we came to understand that small and important thing, that our lives could be large with interesting strangers who would pass us without any personal involvement.

Michael Ondaatje

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Michael Ondaatje
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 12
Author
Novelist
Pedagogue
Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Ondaatje
Would
Small
Came
Interesting
Involvement
Understand
Strangers
Lives
Stranger
Without
Pass
Important
Large
Thing
Personal

More quotes by Michael Ondaatje

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Politically I don't believe anymore that we can only have one voice to a story, it's like having one radio station to represent a country.
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Tell me, is it possible to love someone who is not as smart as you are? ...But isn't it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? ...Why is that? Because we want to know things, how the pieces fit. Talkers seduce, words direct us into corners. We want more than anything to grow and change. Brave new world.
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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.
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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.
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For echo is the soul of the voice exciting itself in hollow places.
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Right now, I have no idea what I will write or if I will write again.
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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.
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I don't have a plan for a story when I sit down to write. I would get quite bored carrying it out.
Michael Ondaatje
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It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.
Michael Ondaatje
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What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power.
Michael Ondaatje
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A novel is a mirror walking down a road
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A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.
Michael Ondaatje
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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.
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A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands, knowing it is something that feeds him more than water.
Michael Ondaatje
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She had always wanted words, she loved them grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.
Michael Ondaatje
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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
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Some events take a lifetime to reveal their damage and influence.
Michael Ondaatje
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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
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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
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Could you fall in love with her if she wasn't smarter than you? I mean, she may not be smarter than you. But isn't it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? Think now.
Michael Ondaatje