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.
YANN MARTELI explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory.
More Yann Martel Quotes
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I 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.
YANN MARTEL -
I am not a particularly natural writer. I am not a person who can write in paragraphs the way some writers do. For me, it’s sentence by sentence, sometimes word-by-word. And I revise constantly. It’s a very laborious process, but I love doing it.
YANN MARTEL -
I find that movies tend to fix the aesthetics of a story in people’s minds.
YANN MARTEL -
You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.
YANN MARTEL -
He’s a shy man. Life has taught him not to show off what is most precious to him.
YANN MARTEL -
If you don’t have dreams, how do you maneuver reality? Where do you get the ideas to change reality if not from dreams?
YANN MARTEL -
The presence of God is the finest of rewards.
YANN MARTEL -
The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.
YANN MARTEL -
Can there be any happiness greater than the happiness of salvation?
YANN MARTEL -
I felt I was beating a rainbow to death
YANN MARTEL -
The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.
YANN MARTEL -
The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.
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It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.
YANN MARTEL -
Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life.
YANN MARTEL -
Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it’s true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths.
YANN MARTEL -
In art, something comes of nothing. Out of the thin air and the ether, you create a story. And that is intensely satisfying.
YANN MARTEL -
Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away.
YANN MARTEL -
How long does it take for a broken spirit to kill a body that has food, water and shelter?
YANN MARTEL -
Afterwards, when it’s all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?
YANN MARTEL -
Come aboard if your destination is oblivion- it should be our next stop. We can sit together. You can have the window seat if you want. But it’s a sad view.
YANN MARTEL -
The language of prose is very different than the language of cinema, so the movie has to successfully translate what was in the book.
YANN MARTEL -
I am reminded of a story of Lord Krishna when he was a cowherd. Every night he invites the milkmaids to dance with him in the forest. They come and they dance. The night is dark, the fire in their midst roars and crackles, the beat of the music gets ever faster.
YANN MARTEL -
Just as art brings you to another place, so does religion – and to ask questions of factuality tends to reduce both. If you say you were inspired by a novel, that implies that your book is a work of fiction.
YANN MARTEL -
A movie will do in one second, with one image, what it will take a novelist at least a page to describe.
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I have read that there are two fears that cannot be trained out of us: the startle reaction upon hearing an unexpected noise, and vertigo.
YANN MARTEL -
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.
YANN MARTEL