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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

At moments of wonder, it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far.
YANN MARTEL

Moments Thinking Wonder
Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life.
YANN MARTEL

Life Lifeboat
I am not a particularly natural writer. I am not a person who can write in paragraphs the way some writers do. For me, it’s sentence by sentence, sometimes word-by-word. And I revise constantly. It’s a very laborious process, but I love doing it.
YANN MARTEL

Laborious Process Sometimes Way Writing
Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart.
YANN MARTEL

Heart Sea Wind
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
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
The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other.
YANN MARTEL

Boredom Opposites Swings
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
Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.
YANN MARTEL

Doing Good Happy Knows
There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God… These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside.
YANN MARTEL

Defend Failing People Realizing
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 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
Music is a bird’s answer to the noise and heaviness of words. It puts the mind in a state of exhilarated speechlessness.
YANN MARTEL

Answers Bird Mind
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
It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.
YANN MARTEL

Catching Fire Moon

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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