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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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Michael Ondaatje
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 12
Author
Novelist
Pedagogue
Poet
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Ondaatje
Research
Bigs
Difficult
Light
Make
Historical

More quotes by Michael Ondaatje

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all this Beethoven and rain
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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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
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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.
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It's an odd state to be in, blowing the whistle on your home country.
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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I don't see novels ending with any real sense of closure.
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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All I ever wanted was a world without maps.
Michael Ondaatje
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Half a page--and the morning is already ancient.
Michael Ondaatje
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I think precision in writing goes hand in hand with not trying to say everything. You try and say two-thirds, so the reader will involve himself or herself.
Michael Ondaatje
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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
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There always should be something hanging unfinished before a scene ends so that there's a reason for going to the next scene.
Michael Ondaatje
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How we are almost nothing. We think, in our youth, we are the centre of the universe, but we simply respond, go this way or that by accident, survive or improve by the luck of the draw, with little choice or determination on our part.
Michael Ondaatje
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Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous.
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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How does this happen? To fall in love and be disassembled.
Michael Ondaatje
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Here. Where I am anonymous and alone in a white room with no history and no parading. So I can make something unknown in the shape of this room. Where I am King of Corners.
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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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.
Michael Ondaatje