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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

Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.
YANN MARTEL

Beautiful Jealous Life
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
War subjects itself to transportation in a way that we find acceptable.
YANN MARTEL

Transportation War Way
I would have like PI to be a Jew, too, to practice Judaism, but there are two religions that are explicitly incompatible: Christianity and Judaism. Where one begins, the other ends, according to Christians, and where one endures, the other strays, according to Jews.
YANN MARTEL

Christians Incompatible Practice Religions
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
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
My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
YANN MARTEL

Gloomy Left Suffering
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
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
There is no doubt in my mind that that feral giraffes and feral hippos have been living in Tokyo for generations without seeing a soul.
YANN MARTEL

Generations Seeing Shock Soul
You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.
YANN MARTEL

Hope might Thinking
Christianity is a religion in a rush.
YANN MARTEL

Christianity Religion Rush
How true is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true.
YANN MARTEL

Invention Mother True Very
Don’t you bully me with your politeness!
YANN MARTEL

Bully People Politeness
Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body. It is from there that both babies and cancers are born.
YANN MARTEL

Baby Cancer Death Life
It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.
YANN MARTEL

Book Life Names Sometimes

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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