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 OndaatjeRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing novels involves an internal dialogue, where the author debates ideas through their characters.
Michael Ondaatje highlights the creative process of writing novels as a form of self-exploration and debate. Through the act of creating characters, authors can engage in discussions with themselves about complex themes and ideas, allowing for personal reflection and deeper understanding.
Themes
WritingDebateCharactersCreativitySelf-Reflection
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, when discussing character development, you can use this quote to illustrate the purpose of creating characters as a means of exploring ideas.
More from Michael Ondaatje
All quotes →When we are young we do not look into mirrors. It is when we are old, concerned with our name, our legend, what our lives will mean to the future. We become vain with the names we own, our claims to have been the first eyes, the strongest army, the cleverest merchant. It is when he is old that Narcissus wants a graven image of himself.
Michael OndaatjeRead
Water is the exile, carried back in cans and flasks, the ghost between your hands and your mouth.
Michael OndaatjeRead
You must talk to me, Caravaggio. Or am I just a book? Something to be read, some creature to be tempted out of a loch and shot full of morphine, full of corridors, lies, loose vegetation, pockets of stones.
Michael OndaatjeRead
You don't want to write your own opinion, you don't want to just represent yourself, but represent yourself through someone else.
Michael OndaatjeRead
A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands, knowing it is something that feeds him more than water.
Michael OndaatjeRead
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