I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time.
YANN MARTELLife 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!
More Yann Martel Quotes
-
-
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 -
I chose the name Pi because it’s an irrational number (one with no discernable pattern). Yet scientists use this irrational number to come to a “rational” understanding of the universe. To me, religion is a bit like that, “irrational” yet with it we come together we come to a sound understanding of the universe.
YANN MARTEL -
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 -
War subjects itself to transportation in a way that we find acceptable.
YANN MARTEL -
It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go.
YANN MARTEL -
We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.
YANN MARTEL -
If you write genre fiction, you follow the rules, and you have to follow them because readers expect that.
YANN MARTEL -
The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.
YANN MARTEL -
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 -
I went about the job in a direct way. I took the hatchet in both my hands and vigorously beat the fish on the head with the hammerhead (I still didn’t have the stomach to use the sharp edge).
YANN MARTEL -
It’s amazing how willpower can build walls.
YANN MARTEL -
Reality is how we interpret it. Imagination and volition play a part in that interpretation. Which means that all reality is to some extent a fiction.
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 -
For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.
YANN MARTEL -
I ask you, is it the fig tree’s fault that it’s not the season for figs? What kind of thing is that to do to an innocent tree, wither it instantly?
YANN MARTEL