When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.
YANN MARTELPeople always seek to compare. They can take the new, but only if it is somehow connected to the familiar.
More Yann Martel Quotes
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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?
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You may not believe in life, but I don’t believe in death. Move on!
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Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.
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I can’t live for more than four years outside of Canada. I’m Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point.
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My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific ocean.
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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.
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You bring joy and pain in equal measure. Joy because you are with me, but pain because it wont be for long.
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To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing–I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.
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It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go.
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Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness–how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I’ve got!
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Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.
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Come aboard if your destination is oblivion- it should be our next stop. We can sit together. You can have the window seat if you want. But it’s a sad view.
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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.
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We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.
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The language of prose is very different than the language of cinema, so the movie has to successfully translate what was in the book.
YANN MARTEL