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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

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
A movie will do in one second, with one image, what it will take a novelist at least a page to describe.
YANN MARTEL

Communication Novelists Pages
How true is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true.
YANN MARTEL

Invention Mother True Very
We are all born like Catholics, aren’t we—in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God?
YANN MARTEL

Born Catholic Introducing
Reality is how we interpret it. Imagination and volition play a part in that interpretation. Which means that all reality is to some extent a fiction.
YANN MARTEL

Fiction Mean Play Reality
Christianity is a religion in a rush.
YANN MARTEL

Christianity Religion Rush
If you don’t have dreams, how do you maneuver reality? Where do you get the ideas to change reality if not from dreams?
YANN MARTEL

Dream Ideas Reality
The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.
YANN MARTEL

Book Fiction Ideas
And in between the two, in between the sky and the sea, were all the winds. And there were all the nights and all the moons. To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the centre of a circle.
YANN MARTEL

Blue Castaway Moon Night
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
We don’t want any invention. We want the ‘straight facts,’ as you say in English.” Isn’t telling about something–using words, English or Japanese–already something of an invention? Isn’t just looking upon this world already something of an invention?
YANN MARTEL

Country Invention Language People Some Something
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

Art Book Inspired
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.
YANN MARTEL

Happy Mannered Mind Possessed Spy
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

Dream Hands Mistake
Don’t you bully me with your politeness!
YANN MARTEL

Bully People Politeness
You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.
YANN MARTEL

Cheer Graduation Inspiring

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Yann Martel Quotes