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I am not in love with him, I am in love with ghosts. So is he, he's in love with ghosts.

Michael Ondaatje

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Michael Ondaatje
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 12
Author
Novelist
Pedagogue
Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Ondaatje
Love
Ghosts
Ghost

More quotes by Michael Ondaatje

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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.
Michael Ondaatje
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all this Beethoven and rain
Michael Ondaatje
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There was always, he thought, this pleasure ahead of him, an ace of joy up his sleeve so he could say you can do anything to me, take everything away, put me in prison, but I will know [her] when we are old.
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.
Michael Ondaatje
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This was the time in her life that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell. They became half her world.
Michael Ondaatje
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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
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I tend not to know what the plot is or the story is or even the theme. Those things come later, for me.
Michael Ondaatje
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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
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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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I believe this. When we meet those we fall in love with, there is an aspect of our spirit that is historian, a bit of a pedant who reminisces or remembers a meeting when the other has passed by innocently…but all parts of the body must be ready for the other, all atoms must jump in one direction for desire to occur.
Michael Ondaatje
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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
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How can you smile as though your whole life hasn't capsized
Michael Ondaatje
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All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.
Michael Ondaatje
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she had a laugh that hinted it had rolled around once or twice in the mud.
Michael Ondaatje
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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
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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.
Michael Ondaatje
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You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel.
Michael Ondaatje
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Research can be a big clunker. It's difficult to know how you can make the historical light.
Michael Ondaatje
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I'm a Canadian citizen. But I always want to feel at home in Sri Lanka. I'm a member of both countries.
Michael Ondaatje
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Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous.
Michael Ondaatje