|
53cda65
|
It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
ee0689a
|
To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
d1b867d
|
I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear ..
|
|
philosophy
|
Yann Martel |
|
7ab8889
|
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 |
|
1d36433
|
When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.
|
|
suffering
|
Yann Martel |
|
731f6c1
|
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.
|
|
politics
citizenship
|
Yann Martel |
|
65ad7cc
|
It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
8d1206e
|
I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart.
|
|
pain
heart
love
|
Yann Martel |
|
b25b875
|
If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? 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 |
|
b78b01c
|
You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.
|
|
inspirational
|
Yann Martel |
|
936b247
|
To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing..
|
|
family
philosophy
|
Yann Martel |
|
4c289ce
|
The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?
|
|
world
thinking
|
Yann Martel |
|
3e7c07e
|
You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
59f2c93
|
All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.
|
|
madness
survival
|
Yann Martel |
|
cc5d6e0
|
These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. 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.
|
|
religious
inspirational
|
Yann Martel |
|
50b6bda
|
Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.
|
|
yann
martel
pi
|
Yann Martel |
|
398e781
|
If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?
|
|
humanity
inspiration
religion
|
Yann Martel |
|
29e7ea9
|
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.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
2bce738
|
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 |
|
2fc00f6
|
Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
|
|
yann
martel
pi
of
|
Yann Martel |
|
53c99c2
|
If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
d846eda
|
What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. For example - I wonder - could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? I'll tell you, that's one thing I have about my nickname, the way the number runs on forever. It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can yo..
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
0c9d4e9
|
I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
45be605
|
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.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
badd106
|
That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
341d9da
|
The presence of God is the finest of rewards.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
724bbb8
|
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. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen everyday. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen."
|
|
religion
spiritual
life
inspirational
|
Yann Martel |
|
fb3c6b2
|
Misery loves company, and madness calls it forth.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
7c1959e
|
How bitterly glad I am to see you. You bring joy and pain in equal measure. Joy because you are with me, but pain because it won't be for long. What do you know about the sea? Nothing. What do I know about the sea? Nothing. Without a driver this bus is lost. Our lives are over. 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. Oh eno..
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
c551dfc
|
Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous possessive love that grabs at what it can.
|
|
life
|
Yann Martel |
|
2ba38ab
|
You can get used to anything - haven't I already said that? Isn't that what all survivors say?
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
c78e5c2
|
These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy...walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.
|
|
religion
god
hypocrisy
|
Yann Martel |
|
af61da6
|
All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways.
|
|
strange
|
Yann Martel |
|
194f72d
|
I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway's worst mistake is to hope too much and to do too little. 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.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
43111ce
|
There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, "Business as usual." But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mighti..
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
b039b71
|
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?
|
|
life
love
|
Yann Martel |
|
a65633e
|
It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap. I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for awhile. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the..
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
edbf78c
|
Can there be any happiness greater than the happiness of salvation?
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
4434679
|
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.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
ccb08de
|
I love Canada...It is a great country much too cold for good sense, inhabited by compassionate, intelligent people with bad hairdos.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
9f6ca6f
|
Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they've known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? ... The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life.
|
|
|
Yann Martel |
|
a1d6194
|
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 |
|
0f6d314
|
I couldn't get Him out of my head. Still can't. I spent three solid days thinking about Him. The more He bothered me, the less I coul forget Him. And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him.
|
|
jesus
religion
|
Yann Martel |
|
9804c5f
|
Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.
|
|
scientists
|
Yann Martel |