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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

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

Book Go Important Letting Life Of Pi
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

Animal Mind Thinking
I explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory.
YANN MARTEL

Left Memories Place
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
I can well imagine an athiest’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My God!” – and the deathbed leap of faith.
YANN MARTEL

Deathbed Light Self White
How true is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true.
YANN MARTEL

Invention Mother True Very
My greatest wish – other than salvation – was to have a book.
YANN MARTEL

Book Salvation Wish
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
My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific ocean.
YANN MARTEL

Grateful Gratitude Ocean
Can there be any happiness greater than the happiness of salvation?
YANN MARTEL

Greater Happiness Salvation
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

Ambition Art Skulls
Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field-but they’re all we have.
YANN MARTEL

Dancing Toads Trying
To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches.
YANN MARTEL

Brother Mother Sorry
Life is an interpretation of a series of facts, and that interpretation is really what life is about. So the division between non-fiction and fiction has a certain logic, but it’s a very limited one. And by and large, it isn’t helpful.
YANN MARTEL

Division Facts Fiction Helpful Large
Jesus, Mary, Muhammad and Vishnu, how good to see you Richard Parker!
YANN MARTEL

Hinduism Jesus Muhammad

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?

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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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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