All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.
YANN MARTELIt is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.
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?
YANN MARTEL -
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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I wept like a child. It was not because I was overcome at having survived my ordeal, though I was. Nor was it the presence of my brothers and sisters, though that too was very moving.
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If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe?
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The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.
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Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body. It is from there that both babies and cancers are born.
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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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I can well imagine an athiest’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My God!” – and the deathbed leap of faith.
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I go to mass every Sunday, but love going to mosques too. Muslims pray in a beautiful way.
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Just do it. Get it down on the page. Work hard. And then let go. Ask yourself why you want to write. You have to be clear about that.
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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.
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We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.
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People always seek to compare. They can take the new, but only if it is somehow connected to the familiar.
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India is a place where all stories are possible. You forget that the imagination can take hold of anything and contemplate it and love it and describe it.
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The dorado did the most extraordinary thing as it died: it began to flash all kinds of colours in rapid succession. Blue, green, red, gold, and violet flickered and shimmered neon-like on its surface as it struggled. I felt I was beating a rainbow to death.
YANN MARTEL