Yann Martel Quotes
I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape.
Fanatics do not have faith - they have belief. With faith you let go. You trust. Whereas with belief you cling.
Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they're doing and why they're doing it.
My greatest wish — other than salvation — was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One I could read again and again, with new eyes and a fresh understanding each time.
That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?
Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed.
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.
I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time.
The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. It was natural that, bereft and desperate as I was, in the throes of unremitting suffering. I should turn to God
A movie will do in one second, with one image, what it will take a novelist at least a page to describe.
My next book - each one while I'm working on it - dances in my mind and thrills me at every turn. If it didn't, why would I write it?
Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity.
The language of prose is very different than the language of cinema, so the movie has to successfully translate what was in the book.
Come aboard if your destination is oblivion- it should be our next stop. We can sit together. You can have the window seat if you want. But it's a sad view.
Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?
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.
Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch?
How long does it take for a broken spirit to kill a body that has food, water and shelter?
The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.
A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely.
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.
Music is a bird's answer to the noise and heaviness of words. It puts the mind in a state of exhilarated speechlessness.
If you are pitched into misery, remember that your days on this earth are counted and you might as well make the best of those you have left.
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.
Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field-but they're all we have.
Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths.
I go to mass every Sunday, but love going to mosques too. Muslims pray in a beautiful way.
Books, like people, can't be reduced to the cost of the materials with which they were made. Books, like people, become unique and precious once you get to know them.
Atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them -- and then they leap.
There are animals we haven't stopped by. Don't think they're harmless. Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
Stories--individual stories, family stories, national stories--are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals.
In my youth, it was my good luck to have a few good teachers, men and women, who came into my head and lit a match.
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.