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 MARTELIt was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.
More Yann Martel Quotes
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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 -
I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart.
YANN MARTEL -
You can get used to anything – haven’t I already said that? Isn’t that what all survivors say?
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…for everything has a trace of the divine in it.
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One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.
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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.
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In a movie, you need good actors, whereas in a book, you don’t, unless you have a really bad imagination. In a book, your imagination will do the acting for you. Also, the process of revelation is often different. Tension is achieved in a different way.
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I felt I was beating a rainbow to death
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I explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory.
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We are all born like Catholics, aren’t we—in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God?
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How true is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true.
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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.
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Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away.
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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.
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Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love.
YANN MARTEL