black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

We think we live in a global village. We don’t. The world is a big and beautiful and incredibly varied place. It can only be known locally, with your two feet on the ground. We should stick to our own gardens, as Voltaire said.

Yann Martel

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’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go.
YANN MARTEL

Book Go Important Letting Life Of Pi
If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe?
YANN MARTEL

Belief Believe Book Life
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
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
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
The world isn’t just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn’t that make life a story?
YANN MARTEL

Life Travel Understanding
Atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them — and then they leap.
YANN MARTEL

Atheist Brother Legs
science can only take you so far and then you have to leap
YANN MARTEL

Far Leap Science
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
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
There are animals we haven’t stopped by. Don’t think they’re harmless. Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Matter Thinking
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
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
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 think we live in a global village. We don’t. The world is a big and beautiful and incredibly varied place. It can only be known locally, with your two feet on the ground. We should stick to our own gardens, as Voltaire said.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

We think we live in a global village. We don’t. The world is a big and beautiful and incredibly varied place. It can only be known locally, with your two feet on the ground. We should stick to our own gardens, as Voltaire said.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Yann Martel Quotes