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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

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
I can well imagine an athiest’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My God!” – and the deathbed leap of faith.
YANN MARTEL

Deathbed Light Self White
People always seek to compare. They can take the new, but only if it is somehow connected to the familiar.
YANN MARTEL

Connected Men People Sea
Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Expression Insecurity
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.
YANN MARTEL

Country Imagination Love Possible
One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.
YANN MARTEL

Happy Mannered Mind Possessed Spy
You can get used to anything – haven’t I already said that? Isn’t that what all survivors say?
YANN MARTEL

Said Survivor Used
Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.
YANN MARTEL

Beats Reason Risk
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
Music is a bird’s answer to the noise and heaviness of words. It puts the mind in a state of exhilarated speechlessness.
YANN MARTEL

Answers Bird Mind
We don’t want any invention. We want the ‘straight facts,’ as you say in English.” Isn’t telling about something–using words, English or Japanese–already something of an invention? Isn’t just looking upon this world already something of an invention?
YANN MARTEL

Country Invention Language People Some Something
Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love.
YANN MARTEL

Beautiful Beauty Dirty
My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
YANN MARTEL

Gloomy Left Suffering
It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.
YANN MARTEL

Catching Fire Moon
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 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 MARTEL

Air Doubt Grateful

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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