Michael Ondaatje Quotes

I don't think anyone should pick a candidate for any office based solely on gender. That would be, I believe, a mistake.

I paint things as they are. I don't comment.

Fairness forces you - even when you're writing a piece highly critical of, say, genetically modified food, as I have done - to make sure you represent the other side as extensively and as accurately as you possibly can.

A journalist is supposed to present an unbiased portrait of an event, a view devoid of intimate emotions. This is impossible, of course. The framing of an image, by its very composition, represents a choice. The photographer chooses what to show and what to exclude.

Although... the Chief Magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a party only, but of the whole people of the United States.

Public confidence should govern political appointments.

In my capacity as a board member of the OfS, I hope to be impartial, objective, and fair.

I think people have confidence that I will fairly and accurately represent their point of view to the President, and that I'm not going to put a spin on it, even if I may disagree with it.

I'm a humanist. I'm neither one side nor the other.

Amongst the sons of men how few are known Who dare be just to merit not their own.

I am a great foe of favoritism in public life, in private life, and even in the delicate relationship of an author to his works.

I wish to reproduce things as they are or as they would be even if I myself did not exist.

I'm for truth, no matter who tells it.

It is interesting to observe how real the object remains, in spite of all abstractions.

I mistrust the judgment of every man in a case in which his own wished are concerned

You must first of all think justly. Don’t sit in judgment over others when you don’t know the truth of the matter.

My stepdad always said, "If you're going to believe the good, you're going to believe the bad." I think that's really important.

I come to every case with an open mind. Every case is new to me.

Sentiment never was and never can be a guarantee for justice.

I have to separate my personal concerns from my professional responsibilities.

The first law for the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true. Moreover, there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice.

I think that whoever is the attorney general, you don't want them to be as a yes person for any particular constituency.

Journalists aren't supposed to praise things. It's a violation of work rules almost as serious as buying drinks with our own money or absolving the CIA of something.

You need the kind of objectivity that makes you forget everything you've heard, clear the table, and do a factual study like a scientist would.

I try to capture reality, nothing else.