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b15cc99 Thus set up, pen in hand, for the sake of greater truth, I would turn Portugal into a fiction. That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence? What need did I have to go to Portugal? The Yann Martel
44f1492 Time became distance for me in the way it is for all mortals Yann Martel
7b52867 The three-toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. "A good-natured smile is forever on its lips," reported Tirler (1966). I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but many a time during that month in Brazil, looking up at sloths in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep i.. Yann Martel
cbf65af Do you see the invisible spirals on the margins of the page? I thought I would run out of paper. It was the pens that ran out Yann Martel
d2688d2 You speak with warm marbles in your mouth. You have an Indian accent Yann Martel
832d876 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 to 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-.. Yann Martel
07e17a4 It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like Yann Martel
0d3ac19 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 .. Yann Martel
850560c 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. I Yann Martel
c040881 It fell into my cup with a clink, and no doubt I will be considered to have abandoned the last vestiges of humanness by those who do not understand the degree of my suffering when I say that it sounded to my ears like the music of a five-rupee coin dropped into a beggar's cup. A Yann Martel
7e0ba9e Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting--that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is at the origin of art--and he had filled the hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to. Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question.. Yann Martel
c9fe9c5 If it happened, it happened. Why should it have to mean anything? Yann Martel
827d19d My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition. I mock this skull. I look at it and I say, "You've got the wrong fellow. You may not believe in life, but I don't believe in death. Move on!" The skull snickers and moves ever closer, but that doesn't surprise me. The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity--it's envy. .. Yann Martel
82c756e Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger. Yann Martel
0cce51f The reward for the watching eye and the listening ear is great. I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses. Yann Martel
85d023e Trees were not hard, irritable things, but discreetly orgasmic beings moaning at a level too deep for our brutish ears. And flowers were quick explosive orgasms, like making love in the shower. nature orgasm sexual trees Yann Martel
7be37fb onanists breaking a sweat on monkeys, ponies, birds; Yann Martel
9b424d4 Stories identify, unify, give meaning to. Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense. Yann Martel
dfa4b45 English's drive to exploit the new and the alien, its zeal in robbing words from other languages, its incapacity to feel qualms over the matter, its museum-size overabundance of vocabulary, its shoulder-shrug approach to spelling, its don't-worry-be-happy concern for grammar--the result was a language whose colour and wealth Henry loved. Yann Martel
4739c5d How true it is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true. Yann Martel
0a25746 for, of course, with all animals, including us, to stare is an aggressive act. Yann Martel
7875585 Agama bukan sekadar ritual dan tata cara. Ada makna di balik ritual dan tata cara itu. religion Yann Martel
6b71d92 I kept one eye on the horizon, one eye on the other end of the lifeboat. Yann Martel
aec6197 To her, writing is making stock and reading is sipping broth, but only the spoken word is the full roasted chicken. writing Yann Martel
e84d275 I began to wait. My thoughts swung wildly. I was either fixed on practical details of immediate survival or transfixed by pain, weeping silently, my mouth open and my hands on my head. Yann Martel
ecb9a0e Life has taught him not to show off what is most precious to him. Yann Martel
d39725d I don't believe in religion. Religion is darkness. Yann Martel
2b5ab82 The moon distresses you by silently reminding you of your solitude; you open your eyes wide to escape your loneliness. Yann Martel
2736175 No greatness without goodness. Yann Martel
431df86 We fight and fight and fight. We fight no matter the cost of 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 maybe nothing more than life-hungry stupidity. Yann Martel
0965621 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... Yann Martel
115a2bf I was convinced that they understood my condition, that at the sight of me one of them exclaimed, "Oh! It's that castaway with the pussy cat Bamphoo was telling me about. Poor boy. Hope he has enough plankton. I must tell Mumphoo and Tomphoo and Stimphoo about him. I wonder if there isn't a ship around I could alert. His mother would be very happy to see him again. Goodbye, my boy. I'll try to help. My name's Pimphoo." And so, through the g.. Yann Martel
5caf379 Animals that escape go from the known into the unknown - and if there is one thing an animal hates above all else, it is the unknown. Escaping animals usually hind in the very first place they find that gives them a sense of security, and they are dangerous only to those who happen to get between them and their reckoned safe spot. Yann Martel
fd873b0 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. That Yann Martel
e1e862a You can keep your sweaty, chatty Son to yourself. Yann Martel
65baeb0 communion with God in the middle of bags of flour Yann Martel
a4a5f11 ineluctably. Yann Martel
cb2b4d6 Look: Christ on the Cross died of suffocation, but His only complaint was of thirst. If thirst can be so taxing that even God Incarnate complains about it, imagine the effect on a regular human. It Yann Martel
feeafc4 Hediger (1950) mantiene que <>. Yann Martel
ad53a2b 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 to 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 Yann Martel
4c726e7 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. Yann Martel
b6505c0 They were like curmudgeonly old friends who would never admit that they liked me yet came round to see me all the time. The Yann Martel
b0385a8 I knew very little about the religion. [Christianity] It had a reputation for few gods and great violence. But good schools. Yann Martel
40f0258 I can well imagine that somewhere far off, 150 miles away, a ship's watch looked up, startled, and later reported the oddest thing, that he thought he heard a cat's meow coming from three o'clock. Days Yann Martel