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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.

Yann Martel

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.
YANN MARTEL

Irrational Names Numbers Understanding
Mockery be damned, my urine looked delicious.
YANN MARTEL

Delicious Mockery.Urine
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
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
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
Life is an interpretation of a series of facts, and that interpretation is really what life is about. So the division between non-fiction and fiction has a certain logic, but it’s a very limited one. And by and large, it isn’t helpful.
YANN MARTEL

Division Facts Fiction Helpful Large
Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life.
YANN MARTEL

Life Lifeboat
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
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
You bring joy and pain in equal measure. Joy because you are with me, but pain because it wont be for long.
YANN MARTEL

Joy Long Measure Pain
We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.
YANN MARTEL

Animals Men Zoos
If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe?
YANN MARTEL

Belief Believe Book Life
He’s a shy man. Life has taught him not to show off what is most precious to him.
YANN MARTEL

Men Shy Taught
You can get used to anything – haven’t I already said that? Isn’t that what all survivors say?
YANN MARTEL

Said Survivor Used
I’m not a consumer. I hate buying clothes. I don’t have a mobile. I just don’t need things. I don’t like things.
YANN MARTEL

Clothes Hate Needs
Zoo is an artificial territory, an approximation. Civilization is our natural territory.
YANN MARTEL

Civilization Territory Zoos

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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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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Popular Authors

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