Top 26 Quotes by Michael Ondaatje

I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door.

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 cubist novel.

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.

The past is still, for us, a place that is not safely settled.

I don't see novels ending with any real sense of closure.

To write about someone like myself would be very limiting.

The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human. Meander if you want to get to town.

Research can be a big clunker. It's difficult to know how you can make the historical light.

The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat.

A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.