Artists invent things as a way of telling the truth.
YANN MARTELJesus, Mary, Muhammad and Vishnu, how good to see you Richard Parker!
More Yann Martel Quotes
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Zoo is an artificial territory, an approximation. Civilization is our natural territory.
YANN MARTEL -
I chose the name Pi because it’s an irrational number (one with no discernable pattern). Yet scientists use this irrational number to come to a “rational” understanding of the universe. To me, religion is a bit like that, “irrational” yet with it we come together we come to a sound understanding of the universe.
YANN MARTEL -
It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.
YANN MARTEL -
It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I’ve made none the champion.
YANN MARTEL -
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 -
If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe?
YANN MARTEL -
My greatest wish – other than salvation – was to have a book.
YANN MARTEL -
I can’t live for more than four years outside of Canada. I’m Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point.
YANN MARTEL -
Religion is just an alternate way of reading reality – you read material reality, and then you add on an extra layer of religiosity that deepens that understanding of reality. Some countries have lost that capacity, or dismissed it or marginalized it.
YANN MARTEL -
Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field-but they’re all we have.
YANN MARTEL -
For fear, real fear such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it.
YANN MARTEL -
Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was so hard to love.
YANN MARTEL -
The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.
YANN MARTEL -
I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me.
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