In art, something comes of nothing. Out of the thin air and the ether, you create a story. And that is intensely satisfying.
YANN MARTELI wept like a child. It was not because I was overcome at having survived my ordeal, though I was. Nor was it the presence of my brothers and sisters, though that too was very moving.
More Yann Martel Quotes
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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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Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love.
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He’s a shy man. Life has taught him not to show off what is most precious to him.
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And in between the two, in between the sky and the sea, were all the winds. And there were all the nights and all the moons. To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the centre of a circle.
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We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.
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That’s what fiction is about, isn’t it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?
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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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I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me.
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Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart.
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In a movie, you need good actors, whereas in a book, you don’t, unless you have a really bad imagination. In a book, your imagination will do the acting for you. Also, the process of revelation is often different. Tension is achieved in a different way.
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How long does it take for a broken spirit to kill a body that has food, water and shelter?
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Zoo is an artificial territory, an approximation. Civilization is our natural territory.
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Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.
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I find that movies tend to fix the aesthetics of a story in people’s minds.
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I explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory.
YANN MARTEL






