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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

Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed.
YANN MARTEL

Despair Expression Light
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
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
Afterwards, when it’s all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?
YANN MARTEL

Afrerwards God Over
First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.
YANN MARTEL

Firsts Fit Wonder
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
A movie will do in one second, with one image, what it will take a novelist at least a page to describe.
YANN MARTEL

Communication Novelists Pages
We always see the Holocaust in terms of black-and-white images, barking Germans, cowering Jews.
YANN MARTEL

Couple Real War
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
We don’t want any invention. We want the ‘straight facts,’ as you say in English.” Isn’t telling about something–using words, English or Japanese–already something of an invention? Isn’t just looking upon this world already something of an invention?
YANN MARTEL

Country Invention Language People Some Something
It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.
YANN MARTEL

Catching Fire Moon
I was giving up. I would have given up – if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said “I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare.
YANN MARTEL

Giving Hard Heart Up Work
I cannot think of a better way to spread the faith. No thundering from a pulpit, no condemnation from bad churches, no peer pressure, just a book of scripture quietly waiting to say hello, as gentle and powerful as a little girl’s kiss on your cheek.
YANN MARTEL

Book Condemnation Girl Powerful
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
Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity.
YANN MARTEL

Animal Expression Insecurity

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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