Monday, March 20, 2006

You have an image, say the burned man in 'The English Patient', then you have to unearth the story: the connections between that man and this nurse and that woman from 10 years earlier. The story is discovered by unearthing small bits and pieces - a bone here, a shoe here, an anecdote. It becomes a discovery that's not chronological. The crucial thing you discover about a person may happen at the very end, as opposed to the beginning.

The way we discover our friends in some ways.

Michael Ondaatje
Interview, June 2000.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful quote.

Di Mackey said...

I liked it ... the idea that a story as stunning and complex as The English Patient could begin from a single image and grow.