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Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.

Yann Martel

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
There is nothing more satisfying than having a sentence fall into place in a way you feel is right, and then adding another one and then another one. It’s extraordinarily satisfying.
YANN MARTEL

Fall Feels Sentence Way
Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.
YANN MARTEL

Beautiful Jealous Life
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
Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.
YANN MARTEL

Allies Decision Over You
We always see the Holocaust in terms of black-and-white images, barking Germans, cowering Jews.
YANN MARTEL

Couple Real War
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 explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory.
YANN MARTEL

Left Memories Place
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

Entirely Leave Natural Once Pleasing
If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe?
YANN MARTEL

Belief Believe Book Life
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

Laborious Process Sometimes Way Writing
I can well imagine an athiest’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My God!” – and the deathbed leap of faith.
YANN MARTEL

Deathbed Light Self White
The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.
YANN MARTEL

Envy Reason Sticks
For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.
YANN MARTEL

Beens City Evil People
The three religions because I wanted to discuss faith, not organized religion, so wanted to relativize organized religion by having Pi practice three.
YANN MARTEL

Christian Practice Two
Art is a gift: you create and then you give away. How readers receive that gift is their business. If they hate it, that’s their response to it. Others respond by liking it. Either way, that is their interaction with the book, which is no longer mine.
YANN MARTEL

Art Book Hate InterAction

Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.

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Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.

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Popular Authors

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