Yann Martel Quotes

There's nothing like the unimaginable to make people believe.

Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart.

A work of art works because it is true, not because it is real.

Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now.

It's amazing how willpower can build walls.

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

But I want to pray to Allah. I want to be a Christian.

A great literary work can be completely, completely unpredictable. Which can sometimes make them very hard to read, but it gives them a great originality.

Sitting in an office for TOO long is not natural, perhaps, so that's why we should change it. I didn't say that out-and-out capitalism, which reduces humanity to dollar figures, is natural.

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.

We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.

Bapu Gandhi said, ‘All religions are true.’ I just want to love God.

...for everything has a trace of the divine in it.

The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.

I ask you, is it the fig tree's fault that it's not the season for figs? What kind of thing is that to do to an innocent tree, wither it instantly?

I preferred to set off and perish in search of my own kind than to live a lonely half-life of physical comfort and spiritual death on this murderous island.

Can there be any happiness greater than the happiness of salvation?

I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.

If you write genre fiction, you follow the rules, and you have to follow them because readers expect that.

Don’t you bully me with your politeness!

For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.

High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.

Was it the forgetfulness of old age or personal incapacity that made the man able to say please but not thank you?

Repetition is important in the training not only of animals but also of humans.

It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing.

Art is the suitcase of history, carrying the essentials. Art is the life buoy of history. Art is seed, art is memory, art is vaccine.

Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body. It is from there that both babies and cancers are born.

First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.

Blessed be shock. Blessed be the part of us that protects us from too much pain and sorrow. At the heart of life is a fusebox.

I felt I was beating a rainbow to death

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?

I have a story that will make you believe in God.

I can't live for more than four years outside of Canada. I'm Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point.

I love Canada. Its a wonderful political act of faith that exists atop a breathtakingly beautiful land.

Words are much better at relating emotions and thoughts.

Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven says. Even on a symbolic lovel, that's creation in frenzy.

Artists invent things as a way of telling the truth.

If you don't let technology help you, if you resist good ideas, you condemn yourself to dinosaurhood.

Books are something social - a writer speaking to a reader - so I think making the reading of a book the center of a social event, the meeting of a book club, is a brilliant idea.

If you don't have dreams, how do you maneuver reality? Where do you get the ideas to change reality if not from dreams?

He's a shy man. Life has taught him not to show off what is most precious to him.

I explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory.

My ears were full. Nothing more, not one more sound, could push into them and be registered.

My alarm clock during my childhood was a pride of lions.

Gloom is but a shadow of a cloud passing by

...animals don't escape from somewhere but from something

You may not believe in life, but I don't believe in death. Move on!

It was a huge zoo, spread over numberless acres, big enough to require a train to explore it, though it seemed to get smaler as I grew older, train included. Now it's so small it fits in my head.

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.

I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart.