black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

Yann Martel

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

Born Catholic Introducing
It’s amazing how willpower can build walls.
YANN MARTEL

Amazing Wall Willpower
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.
YANN MARTEL

Emotional Fiction Real
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
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
I explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory.
YANN MARTEL

Left Memories Place
We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.
YANN MARTEL

Animals Men Zoos
Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.
YANN MARTEL

Beats Reason Risk
Sitting in an office for TOO long is not natural, perhaps, so that’s why we should change it. I didn’t say that out-and-out capitalism, which reduces humanity to dollar figures, is natural.
YANN MARTEL

Change Humanity Long Office
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

Inspirational Moving Saving
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
First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.
YANN MARTEL

Firsts Fit Wonder
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.
YANN MARTEL

Heart Light Shining
My feelings can perhaps be imagined, but they can hardly be described.
YANN MARTEL

Described Feelings Hardly
The animals might embody certain traits. We think of tigers as being ferocious, etc. But to my mind, it was the other way around: the humans embodied certain animal traits.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Mind Thinking

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Yann Martel Quotes