The world isn’t just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn’t that make life a story?
YANN MARTELWar subjects itself to transportation in a way that we find acceptable.
More Yann Martel Quotes
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A zoo is not an ideal place for an animal – of course the best place for a chimp is the wilds of Tanzania – but a good zoo is a decent, acceptable place.
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Christianity is a religion in a rush.
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Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.
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You may not believe in life, but I don’t believe in death. Move on!
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We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.
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There is no doubt in my mind that that feral giraffes and feral hippos have been living in Tokyo for generations without seeing a soul.
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The planet is populated by human beings, of which there are only two sexes, and the role of the writer is to explore otherness, other realities. So the idea of a man exploring what it’s like to be a woman doesn’t strike me as being that wild or crazy an idea.
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Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven says. Even on a symbolic lovel, that’s creation in frenzy.
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There are animals we haven’t stopped by. Don’t think they’re harmless. Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
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Art is a gift: you create and then you give away. How readers receive that gift is their business. If they hate it, that’s their response to it. Others respond by liking it. Either way, that is their interaction with the book, which is no longer mine.
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I ask you, is it the fig tree’s fault that it’s not the season for figs? What kind of thing is that to do to an innocent tree, wither it instantly?
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I thought they were helping me. I was so full of trust in them that I felt grateful as they carried me in the air. Only when they threw me overboard did I begin to have doubts.
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We think we live in a global village. We don’t. The world is a big and beautiful and incredibly varied place. It can only be known locally, with your two feet on the ground. We should stick to our own gardens, as Voltaire said.
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Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart.
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Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey.
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To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches.
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The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other.
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There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God… These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside.
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Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.
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In art, something comes of nothing. Out of the thin air and the ether, you create a story. And that is intensely satisfying.
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Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
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It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I’ve made none the champion.
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Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness–how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I’ve got!
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I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he’s not careful.
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My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition.
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I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I had ever killed. I was now a killer. I was now as guilty as Cain. I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious, and now I had blood on my hands. It’s a terrible burden to carry. All sentient life is sacred.
YANN MARTEL