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1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

Life 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!

Yann Martel

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More Yann Martel Quotes

• 

  We are all born like Catholics, aren’t we—in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God?

  YANN MARTEL
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• 

  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.

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• 

  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
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• 

  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
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• 

  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
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• 

  Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart.

  YANN MARTEL
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• 

  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
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• 

  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
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• 

  The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.

  YANN MARTEL
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• 

  My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition.

  YANN MARTEL
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• 

  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
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• 

  The presence of God is the finest of rewards.

  YANN MARTEL
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• 

  Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.

  YANN MARTEL
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• 

  I go to mass every Sunday, but love going to mosques too. Muslims pray in a beautiful way.

  YANN MARTEL
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• 

  Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field-but they’re all we have.

  YANN MARTEL
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• 

  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
  DreamHandsSurvival