Yann Martel Quotes

Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food is low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured.

Yann Martel

• High
• Fear
• Food
• Environment
• Forever

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Quotes to Explore

• Even 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 Martel
  • God
  • Hope
  • Rest

• To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Life
  • Doubt

• I was weeping because Richard Parker left me so unceremoniously. What a terrible thing it is to botch the farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things meaningful shape.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Meaningful
  • Farewell

• There were many seas. The sea roared like a tiger. The sea whispered in your ear like a friend telling you secrets. The sea clinked like small change in a pocket. The sea thundered like avalanches. The sea hissed like sandpaper working on wood. The sea sounded like someone vomiting. The sea was dead silent.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Small
  • Friend
  • Sea

• It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose, I dare say even wholeness.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Peace
  • Purpose

• I like using animals because they help suspend my reader's disbelief. We have certain ideas about dentists. We don't have many ideas about rhinoceros dentists.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Help
  • Ideas
  • Animals

• The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity - it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Life
  • Death
  • Beautiful

• May books spread the world over!

  

  Yann Martel
  • World
  • May
  • Books

• Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Trying
  • Words
  • Cold

• If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Up
  • Reality
  • Support

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

  

  Yann Martel
  • You
  • Rules
  • Fiction

• Fanatics do not have faith - they have belief. With faith you let go. You trust. Whereas with belief you cling.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Faith
  • Trust
  • Belief

• Words aren't very good at describing complicated, strange visual things. You can try, and the reader will have some sort of image in their mind, but words aren't good at that.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Good
  • Mind
  • Words

• I am not an autobiographical writer.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Writer
  • Autobiographical

• 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
  • Hope
  • Fear
  • Trust

• Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?

  

  Yann Martel
  • Life
  • God
  • Believe

• The moral of a fable is eternal. The moral of a story is temporary to a story.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Moral
  • Story
  • Temporary

• Then Richard Parker, companion of my torment, awful, fierce thing that kept me alive, moved forward and disappeared forever from my life.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Life
  • Forever
  • Fierce

• Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.

  

  Yann Martel
  • God

• 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.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Life
  • Men
  • Careful

• Oncoming death is terrible enough, but worse still is oncoming death with time to spare, time in which all the happiness that was yours and all the happiness that might have been yours becomes clear to you. You see with utter lucidity all that you are losing.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Time
  • Death

• I think art comes from some sense of discomfort with the world, some sense of not quite fitting with it.

  

  Yann Martel
  • World
  • Art
  • Think

• I'm happy pretty well anywhere on this big, beautiful planet.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Happy
  • Pretty
  • Beautiful

• I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life.

  

  Yann Martel
  • Life
  • True
  • Fear