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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 Martel

For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.
YANN MARTEL

Beens City Evil People
I would like to add a third, to wit, the rapid and direct approch of a known killer
YANN MARTEL

Approach Killer Known
To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing–I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.
YANN MARTEL

Father Guidance Lose Supports
Sitting in an office for TOO long is not natural, perhaps, so that’s why we should change it. I didn’t say that out-and-out capitalism, which reduces humanity to dollar figures, is natural.
YANN MARTEL

Change Humanity Long Office
Just do it. Get it down on the page. Work hard. And then let go. Ask yourself why you want to write. You have to be clear about that.
YANN MARTEL

Go Hard Work Letting Writing
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.
YANN MARTEL

Art Book Hate InterAction
I find that movies tend to fix the aesthetics of a story in people’s minds.
YANN MARTEL

Mind People Stories
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

Crackle Faster Forest Girl Jealous Music Sweet
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

Dream Ideas Reality
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.
YANN MARTEL

Fighting Give Up Loss
Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life.
YANN MARTEL

Life Lifeboat
Mockery be damned, my urine looked delicious.
YANN MARTEL

Delicious Mockery.Urine
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

Hope might Thinking
Afterwards, when it’s all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?
YANN MARTEL

Afrerwards God Over
It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go.
YANN MARTEL

Book Go Important Letting Life Of Pi
I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart.
YANN MARTEL

Heart Nerves Pain
The dorado did the most extraordinary thing as it died: it began to flash all kinds of colours in rapid succession. Blue, green, red, gold, and violet flickered and shimmered neon-like on its surface as it struggled. I felt I was beating a rainbow to death.
YANN MARTEL

Began Extraordinary Kinds Shimmered Succession
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.
YANN MARTEL

Beautiful Jealous Life
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.
YANN MARTEL

Acting Book Imagination
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

Air Art Stories
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.
YANN MARTEL

Brother Mother Sorry
Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart.
YANN MARTEL

Heart Sea Wind
Christianity is a religion in a rush.
YANN MARTEL

Christianity Religion Rush
Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Expression Insecurity
There is nothing more satisfying than having a sentence fall into place in a way you feel is right, and then adding another one and then another one. It’s extraordinarily satisfying.
YANN MARTEL

Fall Feels Sentence Way
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.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Stories Together
I cannot think of a better way to spread the faith. No thundering from a pulpit, no condemnation from bad churches, no peer pressure, just a book of scripture quietly waiting to say hello, as gentle and powerful as a little girl’s kiss on your cheek.
YANN MARTEL

Book Condemnation Girl Powerful

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?

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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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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