Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozekiis an American-Canadian novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. She worked in commercial television and media production for over a decade and made several independent films before turning to writing fiction...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth12 March 1956
CountryCanada
canada great growing
Canada has always been a great place for literature. It's strong and growing stronger, and there will always be reading, and there will always be great writers.
casting future interested readers relate talk time voice writers
I am really interested in the way we relate to time. In particular, the way readers and writers talk to each other. Casting your voice out into the future is very beautiful to me.
certainly cross easily fact filmmakers played readily
I've always played that edge of fact and fiction. I used to be a filmmaker, and certainly in film that's a line that filmmakers cross more readily and more easily than novelists.
fiction heard legal people seen
People have always heard voices. Sometimes they're called shamans, sometimes they're called mad, and sometimes they're called fiction writers. I always feel lucky that I live in a culture where fiction writing is legal and not seen as pathology.
memories eye past
Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren't tears. She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.
dream crazy imagination
Am I crazy?" she asked. "I feel like I am sometimes." "Maybe," he said, rubbing her forehead. "But don't worry about it. You need to be a little bit crazy. Crazy is the price you pay for having an imagination. It's your superpower. Tapping into the dream. It's a good thing not a bad thing.
kids worry parent
Do all kids have to worry about their parents’ mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it’s the other way around.
writing character prejudice
When I start writing novels, I go into them with a spirit of inquiry, rather than to substantiate prejudices I had in the beginning. If you don't do that, you can't write good characters.
life answers
There are many answers, none of them right, but some of them most definitely wrong.
life inspiring fleeting
Life is fleeting. Don't waste a single moment of your precious life. Wake up now! And now! And now!
opportunity life-and-death passing-away
Both life and death manifest in every moment of existence. Our human body appears and disappears moment by moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we experience as time and being. They are not separate. They are one thing, and in even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose, and to turn the course of our action either toward the attainment of truth or away from it. Each instant is utterly critical to the whole world.
life-is failing consolation
Life is evanescent, but left to itself it rarely fails to offer some consolation.
needed knows
You never know who it's going to be, or what they'll bring, but whatever it is, it's always exactly what is needed.
bullying pain inspiration
No matter how much bullying they inflict on my body, as long as I have this hope, I can endure any pain.