Yann Martel Quotes

At moments of wonder, it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far.

Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.

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.

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.

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.

The obsession with putting ourselves at the centre of everything is the bane not only of theologians but also of zoologists.

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.

Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer?

Time and sunshine healed a sore, but the process was slow, and new boils appeared if I didn't stay dry.

The paths to liberation are numerous, but the bank along the way is always the same, the Bank of Karma, where the liberation account of each of us is credited or debited depending on our actions.

It seems to be a law of human nature that those who live by the sea are suspiciousof swimmers, just as those who live in the mountains are suspicious of mountainclimbers.

Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression.

Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?

Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer.

A plain is what a mountain aims to be: the closest you can come to being in outer space while yet having your feet on this planet.

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.

He seems to be attracting religions the way a dog attracts fleas.

Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.

Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is color that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.

We are random animals. That is who we are, and we have only ourselves, nothing more--there is no greater relationship.

The holy word is story, and story is the holy word.

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity- its envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.

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

When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.

Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body.

Mockery be damned, my urine looked delicious.

A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely.

Come aboard if your destination is oblivion - it should be our next stop.

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

We are all born like Catholics . . . in limbo, without religion.

Religion is more than rite and ritual.

Under the pathologist's microscope, life and death fight in an illuminated circle in a sort of cellular bullfight. The pathologist's job is to find the bull among the matador cells

My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific ocean.

Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious

I suppose in the end the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.

Christianity is a religion in a rush.

I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.

Nature can put on a thrilling show. The stage is vast, the lighting is dramatic, the extras are innumerable, and the budget for special effects is absolutely unlimited.

As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound.

To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity.

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.

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.

..the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.

There are many ways in which life's little candle can be snuffed out. A cold wind pursues us all.

Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?

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.

For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.

All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in a strange, sometimes inexplicable ways.

To her, writing is making stock and reading is sipping broth, but only the spoken word is the full roasted chicken.

Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love - but sometimes it was so hard to love.