Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away.
YANN MARTELSurvival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away.
YANN MARTELEven when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey.
YANN MARTELLife 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 MARTELI can’t live for more than four years outside of Canada. I’m Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point.
YANN MARTELIf you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it you would be amazed at the animals that fall out: badgers, wolves, boa constrictors, crocodiles, ostriches, baboons, capybaras, wild boars, leopards, manatees, ruminants, in untold numbers.
YANN MARTELAs much as I love movies, it would be presumptuous of me to think that I know how to make one.
YANN MARTELThe three religions because I wanted to discuss faith, not organized religion, so wanted to relativize organized religion by having Pi practice three.
YANN MARTELThere are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God… These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside.
YANN MARTELWhen you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.
YANN MARTELI 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 MARTELCan there be any happiness greater than the happiness of salvation?
YANN MARTELChristianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven says. Even on a symbolic lovel, that’s creation in frenzy.
YANN MARTELI would like to add a third, to wit, the rapid and direct approch of a known killer
YANN MARTELJust 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.
YANN MARTELI know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.
YANN MARTELWe always see the Holocaust in terms of black-and-white images, barking Germans, cowering Jews.
YANN MARTEL