Afterwards, when it’s all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?
YANN MARTELMy greatest wish – other than salvation – was to have a book.
More Yann Martel Quotes
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Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed.
YANN MARTEL -
You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.
YANN MARTEL -
I can well imagine an athiest’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My God!” – and the deathbed leap of faith.
YANN MARTEL -
We are all born like Catholics, aren’t we—in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God?
YANN MARTEL -
For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.
YANN MARTEL -
Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.
YANN MARTEL -
Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
YANN MARTEL -
Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life.
YANN MARTEL -
I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I had ever killed. I was now a killer. I was now as guilty as Cain. I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious, and now I had blood on my hands. It’s a terrible burden to carry. All sentient life is sacred.
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The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.
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Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart.
YANN MARTEL -
First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.
YANN MARTEL -
Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity.
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All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.
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