black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

…for everything has a trace of the divine in it.

Yann Martel

I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I had ever killed. I was now a killer. I was now as guilty as Cain. I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious, and now I had blood on my hands. It’s a terrible burden to carry. All sentient life is sacred.
YANN MARTEL

Blood Boys Religious
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
I have a story that will make you believe in God.
YANN MARTEL

Believe God Stories
In a movie, you need good actors, whereas in a book, you don’t, unless you have a really bad imagination. In a book, your imagination will do the acting for you. Also, the process of revelation is often different. Tension is achieved in a different way.
YANN MARTEL

Acting Book Imagination
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

Book Cinema Different
You can get used to anything – haven’t I already said that? Isn’t that what all survivors say?
YANN MARTEL

Said Survivor Used
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
I have a fierce will to live. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others – and I am one of those – never give up. We fight and fight and fight.
YANN MARTEL

Fighting Give Up Loss
In a healthy individual, a broken bone that has healed properly is strongest where it was once broken. You have not lost any life, Henry told himself. You will still get your fair share of years. Yet the quality of his life changed.
YANN MARTEL

Broken Properly Taken Years
Misery loves company, and madness calls it forth.
YANN MARTEL

Company Madness Misery
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 MARTEL

Inspirational Moving Saving
We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.
YANN MARTEL

Animals Men Zoos
Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life.
YANN MARTEL

Life Lifeboat
For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.
YANN MARTEL

Beens City Evil People
Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love.
YANN MARTEL

Beautiful Beauty Dirty
We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.
YANN MARTEL

Boat Figuratively Literally

…for everything has a trace of the divine in it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

…for everything has a trace of the divine in it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Yann Martel Quotes