A Quote by Michael Ondaatje

When you're writing, it's as if you're within a kind of closed world. — © Michael Ondaatje
When you're writing, it's as if you're within a kind of closed world.
I've never had a mentor personally of any kind. It feels like, generally, in the writing world or the art world, it's more of a thing in America, because you have writing programs, which we don't have. You have these amazing writers who are teachers. I never did a writing program so I never met a writer until I was published. I guess I can't really explain my compulsion for writing these kind of mentor characters.
Metafiction says something. It has to do with taking a large fiction itself and writing within it; that kind of self-reflecting writing that emerges from it can be thought of as metafictional.
When I completed writing 'Soul Mountain,' I more or less closed the accounts with China for myself. I was 50 years old when I left, so China is already within me.
We have been talking with leaders: Change is coming; you can no longer have a closed regime with an open society - satellites, social media, the Internet - you have this kind, this kind of society moving forward, and you are running this closed regime; this is not sustainable. This cannot continue.
Any book that you're writing about your life, there are tough chapters that you've gotten through, you've survived them, and kind of closed them up.
Writing needs to be practiced; there is a limit to how much can be gleaned from a teacher or a manual. The true essence of writing is out there, in the world, and inside, within yourself. To write, you have to give.
The world without is a reflection of the world within. What appears without is what has been found within. In the world within may be found infinite wisdom, infinite power and infinite supply of all that is necessary, waiting for unfoldment, development and expression. If we recognize these potentialities in the world within they will take form in the world without.
Writing is not a job or activity. Nor do I sit at a desk writing for inspiration to strike. Writing is like a different kind of existence. In my life, for some of the time, I am in an alternative world, which I enter through day-dreaming or imagination. That world seems as real to me as the more tangible one of relationships and work, cars and taxes. I don't know that they're much different from each other.
People who write books - they live in their own world as they're writing. But people who are doing shows or big movies - not only are you writing this world that you're living in, but you're also simultaneously running a circus, and you can kind of start losing your mind like that.
I kind of like the idea of creating my own literature within my albums. I definitely thought about that when I started writing songs.
I'm always writing. A friend of mine once said, 'You avoid re-writing by writing.' Which is kind of a good point, because re-writing seems to be mostly about craft, and writing is just, like, getting out your passion on a piece of paper.
Now [in China] within the framework of socialism - which is really social welfare in a social democratic framework - all they want to do is to get the kind of economic growth of the capitalist world. It can't be done. It creates the same kind of problems as in the capitalist world.
We live in a big world, and it is important for us to be aware of culture other than our own. Learn something new, whether you think you're interested in it or not. That's the opposite of having a closed mind or a closed door.
Of the 55 refineries closed in America in the last 10 years, they were all closed for economic reasons, mostly oil company mergers. Not a single one was closed for environmental purposes or objections.
I was kind of thrown into - I didn't expect to do this for a living, being a recording artist. I was just playing music for the fun of it and writing songs. That was kind of my escape, you know, from the humdrum of the world.
My external sensations are no less private to my self than are my thoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside... the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul.
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