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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 239dc23 | The meerkats looked away. They did it like one man, all of them turning in the same direction at exactly the same time. I pulled myself out to see what it was. It was Richard Parker. He confirmed what I had suspected, that these meerkats had gone for so many generations without predators that any notion of flight distance, of flight, of plain fear, had been genetically weeded out of them. He was moving through them, blazing a trail of murde.. | Yann Martel | ||
| d690e47 | We are all born like Catholics, aren't we--in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God? After that meeting the matter ends for most of us. If there is a change, it is usually for the lesser rather than the greater; many people seem to lose God along life's way. | Yann Martel | ||
| 2dbc58f | I sang that tree's glory, its solid, unhurried purity, its slow beauty. Oh, that I could be like it, rooted to the ground but with my every hand raised up to God in praise! | Yann Martel | ||
| 3c31d92 | What if his words had the effect of polio on me? WHat a terrible disease that must be if it could kill God in a man. | Yann Martel | ||
| 3c49623 | wild are, in practice, | Yann Martel | ||
| 598e398 | and I knew what I wanted: I would settle in a hill station and write my novel. I had visions of myself at a table on a large veranda, my notes spread out in front of me next to a steaming cup of tea. Green hills heavy with mists would lie at my feet and the shrill cries of monkeys would fill my ears. The weather would be just tight, requiring a light sweater mornings and evenings, and something short-sleeved midday. Thus set up, pen in hand.. | Yann Martel | ||
| 0b13299 | From Matheran I mailed the notes of my failed novel. I mailed them to fictitious address. | Yann Martel | ||
| f8a8265 | Nevertheless, an Olympic pool is an Olympic pool, touched by immortal glory. | Yann Martel | ||
| a4720ce | This book was born as I was hungry. Let me explain. | Yann Martel | ||
| f170e67 | Indeed, from my earliest years the idea of transformation has been central to my life. Naturally so, I suppose, being the child of diplomats. I changed schools, languages, countries and continents a number of times during my childhood. At each change I had the opportunity to re-create myself, to present a new facade, to bury past errors and misrepresentations. | Yann Martel | ||
| 1a2ee2e | I gave up trying to find out. Any knowledge I might gain was useless. I had no means of controlling where I was going - no rudder, no sails, no motor, some oars, but insufficient brawn. | Yann Martel | ||
| 75ad167 | 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 | ||
| ee653c5 | Then normal sank. | Yann Martel | ||
| 74f1882 | It would no longer be the small thing it was before, but the most important thing in the world, the thing that would save my life. This happened time and again. | Yann Martel | ||
| ade202d | Der Glaube an Gott ist ein Sichoffnen, ein Loslassen, ein tiefes Vertrauen, eine bedingungslose Liebe - aber manchmal war es so schwer zu lieben. Manchmal sank mein Herz vor Wut, Verzagtheit und Erschopfung so tief, dass ich befurchtete, es wurde bis ganz hinab auf den Grund des Pazifiks sinken und ich wurde es nie wieder heraufziehen konnen. In solchen Augenblicken versuchte ich mir Mut zu machen. Ich fasste mir an den Turban, den ich mir.. | life | Yann Martel | |
| d5551a5 | Now comes the difficult part: you must provoke the animal that is afflicting you. Tiger, rhinoceros, ostrich, wild boar, brown bear- no matter the beast, you must get its goat. | Yann Martel | ||
| ec511c0 | 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. | purpose the-struggle wholeness | Yann Martel | |
| 0e13276 | Once more I hear the everlasting seaBreathing beneath the mountain's fragrant breast | Alfred Noyes | ||
| 4cf4cad | 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 unerring ease. | Yann Martel | ||
| 0a4750e | 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. It has no decency, respects no law or 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 mi.. | fear | Yann Martel | |
| 3853f8e | 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 may be nothing more than life-hungry stupidity. | Yann Martel | ||
| b429d1e | Things floated in the water but none that brought me hope. I could see no other lifeboats. | Yann Martel | ||
| d0a175f | An intellect confounded yet a trusting sense of presence and of ultimate purpose. | Yann Martel | ||
| 656fb08 | just beyond the ticket booth father had painted on a wall in bright red letters the question: DO YOU KNOW WHICH IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE ZOO? an arrow pointed to a small curtain. there were so many eager, curious hands that pulled at that curtain that we had to replace it regularly. behind it was a mirror | informative | Yann Martel | |
| abffaf5 | a wandering corpse, a bundle of mindless functions, | Yann Martel | ||
| afce665 | His father had been his sole supporter, telling him to live for his love for Dora, in precise opposition to his uncle's silent opprobrium. Dora was relegated to invisible duties deep within the kitchen. Gaspar lived equally invisibly in the Lobo household, invisibly loved by his father, who invisibly loved his mother. | Yann Martel | ||
| 1416bd3 | He was a man whose profession it was to love, and he would offer comfort and guidance to the best of his ability. I | Yann Martel | ||
| 227de97 | Hungry, tired, eyes sore, dying to pee, I would sit and take in every conceivable kind of movie. The only criterion for being shown at Canadian Images was that a movie be Canadian. It | Yann Martel | ||
| 4ead285 | 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? (p. 302) | Yann Martel | ||
| 5821947 | in fact she was not so wrong; that 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 | ||
| 179a9e9 | can. | Yann Martel | ||
| d085b7d | 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 | Yann Martel | ||
| 3b73261 | Cuesta creer que existe el amor, si no pregunteselo a cualquier amante. Cuesta creer que existe la vida, si no pregunteselo a cualquier cientifico. Cuesta creer que existe Dios, si no pregunteselo a cualquier creyente. ?Que problema tienen con lo que cuesta creer? | Yann Martel | ||
| 0b08daa | First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first. I | Yann Martel | ||
| ff3b579 | At one point I turned to the French language, which gave me the gender of all things. But to no satisfaction. I would readily agree that trucks and murders were masculine while bicycles and life were feminine. But how odd that a breast was masculine. And it made little sense that garbage was feminine while perfume was masculine -- and no sense at all that television, which I would have deemed repellently masculine, was in fact feminine. Whe.. | Yann Martel | ||
| fcb9ad6 | I would return home to la maison, feminine where, as likely as not, I would go to my room, la chambre, where I would settle to read un livre masculine, until supper. During the masculine meal, feminine food would be eaten. After my hard, productive masculine day, I would rest during the feminine night. At one time, for a few days, I even took an affected aversion to being in the kitchen, la cuisine. | Yann Martel | ||
| 3a2d000 | If a friend of mine in Paris had confessed that he was in love with a Simon or a Peter, I would have compared notes with him on my love for Mary Ann. Gender in matters of love struck me as of no greater consequence than flavours in ice-cream. I imagine the absence of religion in my upbringing was one factor that had allowed this belief to survive. Perhaps, too, I had a natural openness in the matter. At any rate, it was completely unwitting.. | Yann Martel | ||
| 61909c9 | Change becomes a habit and habits are hard to change. I | Yann Martel | ||
| e8ad18f | tiptoe to the water's edge. They show their raiments. | Yann Martel | ||
| 8eb2dce | If you went to a home, kicked down the front door, chased the people who lived there out into the street and said, "Go! You are free! Free as a bird! Go! Go!"--do you think they would shout and dance for joy? They wouldn't. Birds are not free. The people you've" | Yann Martel | ||
| 4c60698 | cannot think of a better way to spread the faith. No thundering from a pulpit, no condemnation from bad churches, no peer pressure, just a book of scripture quietly waiting to say hello, as gentle and powerful as a little girl's kiss on your cheek. At | Yann Martel | ||
| e3063a9 | Cuando has sufrido mucho en la vida, cada dolor adicional es tan tolerable como insignificante. | Yann Martel | ||
| 725b291 | to be drunk on alcohol is disgraceful, but to be drunk on water is noble and ecstatic. | Yann Martel | ||
| 3eae115 | He became a champion napper. | Yann Martel |