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52e892d
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Some of us give up on life with only a resigned sigh. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others -- and I am one of those -- never give up. We fight and fight and fight. We fight no matter the cost of the battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success. We fight to the very end. It's not a question of courage. It's something constitutional, an inability to let go. It may be nothing more than life-hungry stupidity.
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Yann Martel |
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7aa8a44
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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 bht the passing shadow of a cloud.
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Yann Martel |
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f520f14
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Su song dep den muc cai chet da phai long no
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Yann Martel |
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d7a8dbf
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I'll tell you, that's one thing I hate about my nickname, the way the number runs on forever. It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let it go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said, but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day.
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life-of-pi
infinity
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Yann Martel |
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73cd95c
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What a strange, wondrous thing, music. At last the chattering mind is silenced. No past to regret, to future to worry about, no more frantic knitting of words and thoughts. Only a beautiful, soaring nonsense.
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Yann Martel |
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6095206
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Territories in the wild are large not as a matter of taste but of necessity. In a zoo, we do for animals what we have done for ourselves with houses: we bring together in a small space what in the wild is spread out. Whereas before for us the cave was here, the river over there, the hunting grounds a mile that way, the lookout next to it, the berries somewhere else--all of them infested with lions, snakes, ants, leeches and poison ivy--now ..
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Yann Martel |
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d826ac1
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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 him. It has no decency, respects no law of convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your m..
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Yann Martel |
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02806e8
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a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.
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Yann Martel |
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703a332
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I was weeping because Richard Parker left me so unceremoniously. It broke my heart... After all we had been through he didn't even look back. But I have to believe in his eyes there was more than my own reflection staring back at me. I know it, I felt it. Even if I can't prove it... 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... I wish I had said. ..
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Yann Martel |
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938907e
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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. The sight brings on an oppressive sadness that no car about to hit you or water about to drown you can match. The feeling is truly unbearable.
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Yann Martel |
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a0cba4c
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To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity. I stopped attending Mass at Our Lady of Immaculate Conception and went instead to Our Lady of Angels. I no longer lingered after Friday prayer among my brethren. I went to temple at crowded times when the Brahmins were too distracted to come between God and me.
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Yann Martel |
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00f232d
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if you're going to be religious, you must be either a Hindu, a Christian or a Muslim. You heard what they said on the esplanade." "I don't see why I can't be all three. Mamaji has two passports. He's Indian and French. Why can't I be a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim?" "That's different. France and India are nations on earth." "How many nations are there in the sky?" She thought for a second. "One. That's the point. One nation, one passport..
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Yann Martel |
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cd8f7d8
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Ayn ly dbr lspr `l Hyy hmkTSv`yym, rk zAt - SH`nybh KHmvh KHlvlAt Hnk, vAp SHhyA pvnh lKHyvvn hhpvKH, hyA tvTSyA At nSHmtv SHl Adm Am hvA lA yyzhr.
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Yann Martel |
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7d823b6
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Swimming instruction, which in time became swimming practice, was gruelling, but there was the deep pleasure of doing a stroke with increasing ease and speed, over and over, till hypnosis practically, the water turning from molten lead to liquid light.
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Yann Martel |
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df2a528
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I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. 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 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 cho..
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Yann Martel |
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d53ca64
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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. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God's, that the self-..
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Yann Martel |
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755a8af
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It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. 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 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 mea..
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Yann Martel |
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2c2d1ec
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Do you understand? You've been praying to a crucified chimpanzee all these years. Your Son of Man is not a god-he's just an ape on a cross!
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Yann Martel |
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a1ce71c
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Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart.
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Yann Martel (author) |
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91a3c57
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Strange in a familiar way, familiar in a strange way.
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Yann Martel |
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a99a8e5
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a tie is a noose,
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Yann Martel |
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bd5c6fc
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And she prays with her eyes closed. It's just a crucifix. And if he's an ape, so be it-he's an ape. He's still the Son of God.
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Yann Martel |
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893fb18
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and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.
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Yann Martel |
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07d518b
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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 or no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.
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Yann Martel |
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b063b8f
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On our last day, a few hours before we were to leave for Munnar, I hurried up the hill on the left. It strikes me now as a typically Christian scene. Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven days. Even on a symbolic level, that's creation in a frenzy. To one born in a religion where the battle for a single soul can be a relay race run over many centuries, with innumerable generations passing along the baton, ..
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Yann Martel |
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f348f84
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I looked up. I couldn't see him. He was hiding at the bottom of the boat. He appeared when he threw my mother's body overboard. His mouth was red. The water boiled with fish.
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Yann Martel |
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3c82c1e
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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 every day. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen."
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Yann Martel |
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d4f99c4
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Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?
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Yann Martel |
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39121f5
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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?" "We're just being reasonable." "So am I! I applied my reason at every moment. Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out ..
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Yann Martel |
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da93be8
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I couldn't bear to have yet another French speaker guffawing at my name, so when the man on the phone asked, "Can I 'ave your name?" I said, "I am who I am." Half an hour later two pizzas arrived for "Ian Hoolihan"."
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Yann Martel |
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d8c17ae
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Now, why does Jesus benefit the human body? Of course, he does his miracle work to impress those around him--and they are impressed. They're amazed. But to show that he is the Messiah, why does Jesus cure infirmities and feed hungry stomachs? After all, he could soar like a bird, as the devil asked him to do, or, as he himself mentioned, he could go about casting mountains into seas. These too would be miracles worthy of a Messiah. Why body..
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Yann Martel |
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e9f6dcd
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The sad fact is that there are no natural deaths, despite what doctors say. Every death is felt by someone as a murder, as the unjust taking of a loved being. And even the luckiest of us will encounter at least one murder in our lives: our own. It is our fate. We all live a murder mystery of which we are the victim.
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Yann Martel |
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07199ba
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It's the sun that makes a landscape, drawing out its color, defining its contours, giving it its spirit.
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Yann Martel |
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a4ba455
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What are we without the ones we love?
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Yann Martel |
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d50f773
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Love is a house with many rooms, this room to feed the love, this one to entertain it, this one to clean it, this one to dress it, this one to allow it to rest, and each of these rooms can also just as well be the room for laughing or the room for listening or the room for telling one's secrets or the room for sulking or the room for apologizing or the room for intimate togetherness, and, of course, there are the rooms for the new members o..
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Yann Martel |
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3758990
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It was only later that I realized that this voice was my own thinking, that this moment of anguish was my first inkling that I was a ceaseless monologue trapped within myself.
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Yann Martel |
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b39b1c8
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When I was your age, I lived in bed, racked with polio. I asked myself every day, 'Where is God? Where is God? Where is God?' God never came. It wasn't God who saved me--it was medicine. Reason is my prophet and it tells me that as a watch stops, so we die. It's the end. If the watch doesn't work properly, it must be fixed here and now by us.
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Yann Martel |
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b3a06a0
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To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing--I'm sorry, I would rather not go on.
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Yann Martel |
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0d951d6
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My greatest wish -- other than salvation -- was to have a book.
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Yann Martel |
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c083e48
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Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field.
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Yann Martel |