Religion is just an alternate way of reading reality – you read material reality, and then you add on an extra layer of religiosity that deepens that understanding of reality. Some countries have lost that capacity, or dismissed it or marginalized it.
YANN MARTELI go to mass every Sunday, but love going to mosques too. Muslims pray in a beautiful way.
More Yann Martel Quotes
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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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I have a fierce will to live. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others – and I am one of those – never give up. We fight and fight and fight.
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Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was so hard to love.
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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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Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field-but they’re all we have.
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Atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them — and then they leap.
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India is a place where all stories are possible. You forget that the imagination can take hold of anything and contemplate it and love it and describe it.
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Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.
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My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
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I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses.
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We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.
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Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity.
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I was giving up. I would have given up – if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said “I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare.
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It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.
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In that, being famous was no different from being gay, or Jewish, or from a visible minority: you are who you are, and then people project onto you some notion they have.
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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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Mockery be damned, my urine looked delicious.
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Reality is how we interpret it. Imagination and volition play a part in that interpretation. Which means that all reality is to some extent a fiction.
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People always seek to compare. They can take the new, but only if it is somehow connected to the familiar.
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I have a story that will make you believe in God.
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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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Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love.
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Stories–individual stories, family stories, national stories–are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals.
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You can get used to anything – haven’t I already said that? Isn’t that what all survivors say?
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My greatest wish – other than salvation – was to have a book.
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You bring joy and pain in equal measure. Joy because you are with me, but pain because it wont be for long.
YANN MARTEL