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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

Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart.
YANN MARTEL

Heart Sea Wind
I have a story that will make you believe in God.
YANN MARTEL

Believe God Stories
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
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
If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it you would be amazed at the animals that fall out: badgers, wolves, boa constrictors, crocodiles, ostriches, baboons, capybaras, wild boars, leopards, manatees, ruminants, in untold numbers.
YANN MARTEL

Animal City Crocodile Fall Ostriches
It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.
YANN MARTEL

Catching Fire Moon
The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.
YANN MARTEL

Envy Reason Sticks
I would like to add a third, to wit, the rapid and direct approch of a known killer
YANN MARTEL

Approach Killer Known
Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed.
YANN MARTEL

Despair Expression Light
I find that movies tend to fix the aesthetics of a story in people’s minds.
YANN MARTEL

Mind People Stories
We always see the Holocaust in terms of black-and-white images, barking Germans, cowering Jews.
YANN MARTEL

Couple Real War
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

Beautiful Garden Thinking
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.
YANN MARTEL

Dream Hands Survival
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.
YANN MARTEL

Emotional Fiction Real
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
Afterwards, when it’s all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?
YANN MARTEL

Afrerwards God Over

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Yann Martel Quotes