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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

Misery loves company, and madness calls it forth.
YANN MARTEL

Company Madness Misery
If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?
YANN MARTEL

Believe Life Love
That’s what fiction is about, isn’t it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?
YANN MARTEL

Essence Fiction Reality
We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.
YANN MARTEL

Boat Figuratively Literally
Life is an interpretation of a series of facts, and that interpretation is really what life is about. So the division between non-fiction and fiction has a certain logic, but it’s a very limited one. And by and large, it isn’t helpful.
YANN MARTEL

Division Facts Fiction Helpful Large
Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.
YANN MARTEL

Astonishing Frightening Indignation
Once you’ve been struck by violence, you acquire companions that never leave you entirely: Suspicion, Fear, Anxiety, Despair, Joylessness. The natural smile is taken from you and the natural pleasures you once enjoyed lose their appeal.
YANN MARTEL

Entirely Leave Natural Once Pleasing
There are animals we haven’t stopped by. Don’t think they’re harmless. Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Matter Thinking
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.
YANN MARTEL

Allies Decision Over You
When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.
YANN MARTEL

Pain Sad Unbearable
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
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.
YANN MARTEL

Atheist Brother Legs
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.
YANN MARTEL

Christianity Looks World
The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other.
YANN MARTEL

Boredom Opposites Swings
The three religions because I wanted to discuss faith, not organized religion, so wanted to relativize organized religion by having Pi practice three.
YANN MARTEL

Christian Practice Two
At moments of wonder, it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far.
YANN MARTEL

Moments Thinking Wonder

You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.

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You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.

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Popular Authors

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