I want the marginality to come into the center. This is the thing I was conscious of growing up, when I later lived in England. I saw all these war movies that came out shortly after the war, and they were all about the war being fought by Englishmen or Americans, there were no other "allies" in it - from India or Australia, etc.
Michael OndaatjePolitically I also 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. You want the politics of any complicated situation to be complicated in a book of fiction or nonfiction.
Michael OndaatjeA love story is not about those who lost their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothingโnot the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.
Michael OndaatjeI want to die on your chest but not yet she wrote sometime in the 13th century of our love
Michael OndaatjeWater is the exile, carried back in cans and flasks, the ghost between your hands and your mouth.
Michael Ondaatje