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I was giving up. I would have given up – if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said “I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare.

Yann Martel

I have a fierce will to live. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others – and I am one of those – never give up. We fight and fight and fight.
YANN MARTEL

Fighting Give Up Loss
I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.
YANN MARTEL

Grace People Zoos
I was giving up. I would have given up – if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said “I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare.
YANN MARTEL

Giving Hard Heart Up Work
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

Fall Feels Sentence Way
In art, something comes of nothing. Out of the thin air and the ether, you create a story. And that is intensely satisfying.
YANN MARTEL

Air Art Stories
It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.
YANN MARTEL

Book Life Names Sometimes
The dorado did the most extraordinary thing as it died: it began to flash all kinds of colours in rapid succession. Blue, green, red, gold, and violet flickered and shimmered neon-like on its surface as it struggled. I felt I was beating a rainbow to death.
YANN MARTEL

Began Extraordinary Kinds Shimmered Succession
Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat wearing Muslims.
YANN MARTEL

Christianity Devotion God Religion
I felt I was beating a rainbow to death
YANN MARTEL

Beating Felt Rainbow
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
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 have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he’s not careful.
YANN MARTEL

Careful Men Ties
I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me.
YANN MARTEL

Dream Hands Mistake
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

Animal Stories Together
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

Ambition Art Skulls
A realization that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably.
YANN MARTEL

Inspirational Life Principles
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

Generations Seeing Shock Soul
My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific ocean.
YANN MARTEL

Grateful Gratitude Ocean
Christianity is a religion in a rush.
YANN MARTEL

Christianity Religion Rush
I cannot think of a better way to spread the faith. No thundering from a pulpit, no condemnation from bad churches, no peer pressure, just a book of scripture quietly waiting to say hello, as gentle and powerful as a little girl’s kiss on your cheek.
YANN MARTEL

Book Condemnation Girl Powerful
We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.
YANN MARTEL

Boat Figuratively Literally
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
Mockery be damned, my urine looked delicious.
YANN MARTEL

Delicious Mockery.Urine
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
My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
YANN MARTEL

Gloomy Left Suffering
Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
YANN MARTEL

Defend Matter Small
It’s hard to visualize James Bond without seeing one of the actors who played him. And it’s hard to visualize Harry Potter without seeing Daniel Radcliffe. A movie is so visually powerful, so overwhelming, that it tends to crowd out how you might have imagined things.
YANN MARTEL

Actors Potters Powerful

I was giving up. I would have given up – if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said “I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare.

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I was giving up. I would have given up – if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said “I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Yann Martel Quotes