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Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey.

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

Heart Nerves Pain
How long does it take for a broken spirit to kill a body that has food, water and shelter?
YANN MARTEL

Broken Spirit Long Water
If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?
YANN MARTEL

Believe Life Love
We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.
YANN MARTEL

Animals Men Zoos
I ask you, is it the fig tree’s fault that it’s not the season for figs? What kind of thing is that to do to an innocent tree, wither it instantly?
YANN MARTEL

Faults Kind Tree
I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses.
YANN MARTEL

Earth Expression Grace
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

Irrational Names Numbers Understanding
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
It’s amazing how willpower can build walls.
YANN MARTEL

Amazing Wall Willpower
First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.
YANN MARTEL

Firsts Fit Wonder
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 MARTEL

Baby Cancer Death Life
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
There is no doubt in my mind that that feral giraffes and feral hippos have been living in Tokyo for generations without seeing a soul.
YANN MARTEL

Generations Seeing Shock Soul
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
Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life.
YANN MARTEL

Life Lifeboat
Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.
YANN MARTEL

Beats Reason Risk

Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey.

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Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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