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

Yann Martel

We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.
YANN MARTEL

Boat Figuratively Literally
Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love.
YANN MARTEL

Beautiful Beauty Dirty
You can get used to anything – haven’t I already said that? Isn’t that what all survivors say?
YANN MARTEL

Said Survivor Used
Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart.
YANN MARTEL

Heart Sea Wind
…for everything has a trace of the divine in it.
YANN MARTEL

Divine Everything Trace
That’s what fiction is about, isn’t it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?
YANN MARTEL

Essence Fiction Reality
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
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
If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?
YANN MARTEL

Believe Life Love
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

Dream Goodbye Heart
Life is an interpretation of a series of facts, and that interpretation is really what life is about. So the division between non-fiction and fiction has a certain logic, but it’s a very limited one. And by and large, it isn’t helpful.
YANN MARTEL

Division Facts Fiction Helpful Large
For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.
YANN MARTEL

Beens City Evil People
I would like to add a third, to wit, the rapid and direct approch of a known killer
YANN MARTEL

Approach Killer Known
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
To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing–I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.
YANN MARTEL

Father Guidance Lose Supports
How long does it take for a broken spirit to kill a body that has food, water and shelter?
YANN MARTEL

Broken Spirit Long Water
Just as art brings you to another place, so does religion – and to ask questions of factuality tends to reduce both. If you say you were inspired by a novel, that implies that your book is a work of fiction.
YANN MARTEL

Art Book Inspired
As much as I love movies, it would be presumptuous of me to think that I know how to make one.
YANN MARTEL

Movie Love Thinking
I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart.
YANN MARTEL

Heart Nerves Pain
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
A zoo is not an ideal place for an animal – of course the best place for a chimp is the wilds of Tanzania – but a good zoo is a decent, acceptable place.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Course Jail Tanzania Zoos
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

Element Games Simple
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

Despair Expression Light
The presence of God is the finest of rewards.
YANN MARTEL

Finest God Presence Rewards
It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I’ve made none the champion.
YANN MARTEL

Champion Made Night
In a healthy individual, a broken bone that has healed properly is strongest where it was once broken. You have not lost any life, Henry told himself. You will still get your fair share of years. Yet the quality of his life changed.
YANN MARTEL

Broken Properly Taken Years
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 go to mass every Sunday, but love going to mosques too. Muslims pray in a beautiful way.

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

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