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It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I’ve made none the champion.

Yann Martel

It’s amazing how willpower can build walls.
YANN MARTEL

Amazing Wall Willpower
In that, being famous was no different from being gay, or Jewish, or from a visible minority: you are who you are, and then people project onto you some notion they have.
YANN MARTEL

Different Minority Notion Project
Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
YANN MARTEL

Defend Matter Small
I thought they were helping me. I was so full of trust in them that I felt grateful as they carried me in the air. Only when they threw me overboard did I begin to have doubts.
YANN MARTEL

Air Doubt Grateful
We are all born like Catholics, aren’t we—in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God?
YANN MARTEL

Born Catholic Introducing
I am reminded of a story of Lord Krishna when he was a cowherd. Every night he invites the milkmaids to dance with him in the forest. They come and they dance. The night is dark, the fire in their midst roars and crackles, the beat of the music gets ever faster.
YANN MARTEL

Crackle Faster Forest Girl Jealous Music Sweet
If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe?
YANN MARTEL

Belief Believe Book Life
As much as I love movies, it would be presumptuous of me to think that I know how to make one.
YANN MARTEL

Movie Love Thinking
One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.
YANN MARTEL

Happy Mannered Mind Possessed Spy
You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.
YANN MARTEL

Hope might Thinking
And in between the two, in between the sky and the sea, were all the winds. And there were all the nights and all the moons. To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the centre of a circle.
YANN MARTEL

Blue Castaway Moon Night
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
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
Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart.
YANN MARTEL

Dream Goodbye Heart
The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark.
YANN MARTEL

Dark Moon Stars
We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.
YANN MARTEL

Animals Men Zoos
My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
YANN MARTEL

Gloomy Left Suffering
Repetition is important in the training not only of animals but also of humans.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Important Training
For fear, real fear such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it.
YANN MARTEL

End Fear Memories Real
It’s hard to visualize James Bond without seeing one of the actors who played him. And it’s hard to visualize Harry Potter without seeing Daniel Radcliffe. A movie is so visually powerful, so overwhelming, that it tends to crowd out how you might have imagined things.
YANN MARTEL

Actors Potters Powerful
The animals might embody certain traits. We think of tigers as being ferocious, etc. But to my mind, it was the other way around: the humans embodied certain animal traits.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Mind Thinking
Don’t you bully me with your politeness!
YANN MARTEL

Bully People Politeness
I can’t live for more than four years outside of Canada. I’m Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point.
YANN MARTEL

Country Four People Years
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!
YANN MARTEL

Tiny Vastness Views
That’s what fiction is about, isn’t it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?
YANN MARTEL

Essence Fiction Reality
My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific ocean.
YANN MARTEL

Grateful Gratitude Ocean
There are animals we haven’t stopped by. Don’t think they’re harmless. Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Matter Thinking

It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I’ve made none the champion.

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It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I’ve made none the champion.

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Popular Authors

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