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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

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

Described Feelings Hardly
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
Once you’ve been struck by violence, you acquire companions that never leave you entirely: Suspicion, Fear, Anxiety, Despair, Joylessness. The natural smile is taken from you and the natural pleasures you once enjoyed lose their appeal.
YANN MARTEL

Entirely Leave Natural Once Pleasing
If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it you would be amazed at the animals that fall out: badgers, wolves, boa constrictors, crocodiles, ostriches, baboons, capybaras, wild boars, leopards, manatees, ruminants, in untold numbers.
YANN MARTEL

Animal City Crocodile Fall Ostriches
My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific ocean.
YANN MARTEL

Grateful Gratitude Ocean
Artists invent things as a way of telling the truth.
YANN MARTEL

Artist Telling Truth Way
I would like to add a third, to wit, the rapid and direct approch of a known killer
YANN MARTEL

Approach Killer Known
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
The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.
YANN MARTEL

Envy Reason Sticks
The planet is populated by human beings, of which there are only two sexes, and the role of the writer is to explore otherness, other realities. So the idea of a man exploring what it’s like to be a woman doesn’t strike me as being that wild or crazy an idea.
YANN MARTEL

Crazy Explore Men Sex
It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.
YANN MARTEL

Go Heart Letting Otherwise Words
We always see the Holocaust in terms of black-and-white images, barking Germans, cowering Jews.
YANN MARTEL

Couple Real War
I can’t live for more than four years outside of Canada. I’m Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point.
YANN MARTEL

Country Four People Years
My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
YANN MARTEL

Gloomy Left Suffering
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
If you don’t have dreams, how do you maneuver reality? Where do you get the ideas to change reality if not from dreams?
YANN MARTEL

Dream Ideas Reality

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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