Martel Quotes & Sayings

Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now. — Yann Martel

Fanatics do not have faith - they have belief. With faith you let go. You trust. Whereas with belief you cling. — Yann Martel

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

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. — Yann Martel

Mr. Piscine Molitor Patel, Indian citizen, is an astounding story of courage and endurance in the face of extraordinarily difficult and tragic circumstances. In the experience of this investigator, his story is unparalleled in the history of shipwrecks. Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger. — Yann Martel

Watch everything she does. You can tell what a woman wants and needs by simply observing her. Even when you two are out spending time together, chillaxing at home, or getting ready for date night. The little things as I said mean a lot to a woman, so with that being stated; start by remembering things like her birthdays, anniversaries, or special events that's significant to you both. Those things may be small to you, but means the world to her. — Will Ag Martel

I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart. — Yann Martel

My life is like a memento more painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition. — Yann Martel

The three religions because I wanted to discuss faith, not organized religion, so wanted to relativize organized religion by having Pi practice three. I would have like PI to be a Jew, too, to practice Judaism, but there are two religions that are explicitly incompatible: Christianity and Judaism. Where one begins, the other ends, according to Christians, and where one endures, the other strays, according to Jews. — Yann Martel

The tennis challenger starts strong but soon loses confidence in his playing. The champion racks up the games. But in the final set, when the challenger has nothing left to lose, he becomes relaxed again, insouciant, daring. Suddenly he's playing like the devil and the champion must work hard to get those last points. — Yann Martel

Fiction and nonfiction are not so easily divided. Fiction may not be real, but it's true; it goes beyond the garland of facts to get to emotional and psychological truths. — Yann Martel

Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart. — Yann Martel

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

Grief is a disease. We were riddled with its pockmarks, tormented by its fevers, broken by its blows. It ate at us like maggots, attacked us like lice- we scratched ourselves to the edge of madness. In the process we became as withered as crickets, as tired as old dogs. — Yann Martel

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

And what of my extended family-birds, beasts, and reptiles? They too have drowned. Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed. And I am allowed no explanation? I am to suffer hell without any account from heaven? In that case, what is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities-the getting of food, clothing and shelter? Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch? (pg. 98) — Yann Martel

India is a place where all stories are possible. You forget that the imagination can take hold of anything and contemplate it and love it and describe it. — Yann Martel

I'm happy pretty well anywhere on this big, beautiful planet. — Yann Martel

What works in a story is very different than what works in cinema. For example, dialogue in books: If you translate it too faithfully, it sounds a little stilted, because we often don't speak the way we speak in novels. Oral language is much punchier, shorter sentences. — Yann Martel

Animals fight, it is with the intent to kill and with the understanding that they may be killed. A — Yann Martel

Emotion and thinking are not distinct substances. — Lucrecia Martel

Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body. It is from there that both babies and cancers are born. — Yann Martel

If it weren't for this hyena, the sailors wouldn't have thrown me into the lifeboat and I would have stayed on the ship and I surely would have drowned; and if I had to share quarters with a wild animal, better the upfront ferocity of a dog than the power and stealth of a cat. — Yann Martel

Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time. Page 212. — Yann Martel

I meet a number of people as a writer of fiction who say "Oh, I don't read much fiction," as if the history of the United States, just as an example, isn't an exercise in storytelling and myth-making. — Yann Martel

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

A movie tends to box you in, at least as far as the aesthetics. You have an incredibly kinetic experience, which is the joy of cinema. — Yann Martel

If God on the Cross is God shamming a human tragedy, it turns the Passion of Christ into the Farce of Christ. The death of the Son must be real. Father Martin assured me it was. But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The Son must have the taste for death forever in His mouth. The Trinity must be tainted by it; there must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon Himself? Why not leave death to the mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love. That was Father Martin's answer. — Yann Martel

...I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. [...] It is important in life to conclude things properly. Only then you can let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse..."
~Life of Pi, chapter 94 — Yann Martel

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. — Yann Martel

He found it where he should have looked first, on the Internet, which is a net indeed, one that can be cast further than the eye can see and be retrieved no matter how heavy the hall, its magical mesh never breaking under the strain but always bringing in the most amazing catch. — Yann Martel

To my mind, faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like you, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can't. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn't want to be in the sun? — Yann Martel

For the first time I noticed - as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next - that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting. I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still. My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized. And I could accept this. It was all right. — Yann Martel

I explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory. — Yann Martel

If you become sick yourself, don't waste your vomit by sending it overboard. Vomit makes an excellent border guard. Puke on the edges of your territory. — Yann Martel

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 just evicted would sputter, "With what right do you throw us out? This is our home. We own it. We have lived here for years. We're calling the police, you scoundrel. — Yann Martel

An adult female orang-utan cannot defeat an adult male spotted hyena. That is the plain empirical truth. Let it become known among zoologists. Had Orange Juice been a male, had she loomed as large on the scales as she did in my heart, it might have been another matter. But portly and overfed though she was from living in the comfort of a zoo, even so she tipped the scales at barely 110 pounds. Female orang-utans are half the size of males. But it is not simply a question of weight and brute strength. Orange Juice was far from defenseless. What it comes down to is attitude and knowledge. What does a fruit eater know about killing? Where would it learn where to bite, how hard, for how long? An orang-utan may be taller, may have very strong and agile arms and long canines, but if it does not know how to use these as weapons, they are of little use. The hyena, with only its jaws, will overcome the ape because it knows what it wants and how to get it. — Yann Martel

A zoo is a cultural institution. Like a public library, like a museum, it is at the service of popular education and science. And by that token, not much of a money-making venture for the Greater Good and the Greater Profit are not compatible aims. — Yann Martel

I would nearly go into convulsions of dismay at my stupidity. — Yann Martel

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. When — Yann Martel

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

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. — Yann Martel

He became a champion napper. — Yann Martel

Today, nobody cares about European culture. We have a tradition, a vision, a culture of the past, we have legacy, but we don't have a present culture and we don't have a future. — Frederic Martel?

This book was born as I was hungry. Let m eexplain. — Yann Martel

I'm the worst critic about music myself. I hardly ever, every like something the first time I listen to it. So I've got to put myself in other people's shoes. — Marc Martel

I entered the church, without fear this time, for it was now my house too. I offered prayers to Christ, who is alive. Then I raced down the hill on the left and raced up the hill on the right - to offer thanks to Lord Krishna for having put Jesus of Nazareth, whose humanity I found so compelling, in my way. — Yann Martel

I have a story that will make you believe in God. — Yann Martel

But it was hard, oh, it was hard. 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. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation, and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up. — Yann Martel

If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it? — Yann Martel

I go to mass every Sunday, but love going to mosques too. Muslims pray in a beautiful way. — Yann Martel

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 apologizing or the room for intimate togetherness, and, of course, there are the rooms for the new members of the household. — Yann Martel

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 ... then surely we are also permitted doubt. — Yann Martel

A zoo is not an ideal place for an animal - of course the best place for a chimp is the wilds of Tanzania - but a good zoo is a decent, acceptable place. Animals are far more flexible than we realize. IF they weren't, they wouldn't have survived. But my opinion about zoos came after research. Initially I had the opinion that most people have, that they are jails. — Yann Martel

Religion is more than rite and ritual. — Yann Martel

And then he has nothing to do. After three weeks-or is it a lifetime?-of ceaseless activity, he has nothing to do. A very long sentence, anchored in solid nouns, with countless subordinate clauses, scores of adjectives and adverbs, and bold conjunctions that launched the sentence in a new direction-besides unexpected interludes-has finally, with a surprisingly quiet full stop, come to an end. For an hour or so, sitting outside on the landing at the top of the stairs, nursing a coffee, tired, a little relieved, a little worried, he contemplates that full stop. What will the next sentence bring? — Yann Martel

One discovers weeping - one's weeping personality - only upon weeping. It is a strange discovery, not only to others but to oneself — Yann Martel

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. — Yann Martel

He's a shy man. Life has taught him not to show off what is most precious to him. — Yann Martel

Nil magnum nisi bonum. No greatness without goodness. — Yann Martel

I thought I knew not only her habits but also her limits. This display of ferocity, of savage courage, made me realize that I was wrong. All my life I had known only a part of her. — Yann Martel

Jesus, Mary, Muhammad and Vishnu, how good to see you Richard Parker! — Yann Martel

Books are something social - a writer speaking to a reader - so I think making the reading of a book the center of a social event, the meeting of a book club, is a brilliant idea. — Yann Martel

Ageing is not easy, Senhora Castro. It's a terrible, incurable pathology. And great love is another pathology. — Yann Martel

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

I can't live for more than four years outside of Canada. I'm Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point. — Yann Martel

War subjects itself to transportation in a way that we find acceptable. — Yann Martel

Some of us give up[ ... ] 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 battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success. — Yann Martel

The language of prose is very different than the language of cinema, so the movie has to successfully translate what was in the book. — Yann Martel

Socially inferior animals are the ones that make the most strenuous, resourceful efforts to get to know their keepers. They prove to be the ones most faithful to them ... it is a fact commonly known in the trade. — Yann Martel

Stu stops munching, looks up at me from under his shaggy hair.
"So, can you read?" He slides a section toward me.
I cock my head toward the paper. The letters are small, blurry drawings. The alphabet might as well be Chinese or Arabic. Strange that I can't read or speak, though I still have language inside my head. Words are a consolation, but not a tool.
"Guess not. You want me to read stuff out loud to you?"
I would, but not right now. If I wanted to show interest in the newspaper I could cross the table and rub against his shoulder. Instead I gaze at him over the bowl of milk.
"It's so weird," he says in a hesitant voice. "You don't look like a cat. When you stare at me, you look like Eliza."
That's the nicest thing he could have said. With a happy lightness to my step I move between the bowls, over his napkin ring and spoon, until I stand on the edge of the table and nip at his prickly chin. This is my way of saying: Hi, there. I like you. — Simone Martel

God is universal," spluttered the priest.
The imam nodded strong approval. "There is only one God."
"And with their one god Muslims are always causing troubles and provoking riots. The proof of how bad Islam is, is how uncivilized Muslims are,: pronounced the pandit.
"Says the slave-driver of the cast system," huffed the imam. "Hindus enslave people and worship dressed-up dolls."
"They are golden calf lovers. They kneel before the cows," the priest chimed in.
"While Christians kneel before a white man! They are flunkies of a foreign god. They are nightmare of all nonwhite people. — Yann Martel

Catholics have a reputation for severity, for judgment that comes down heavily. — Yann Martel

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

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

It was a placid explosion of orange and red, a great chromatic symphony, a
colour canvas of supernatural proportions, truly a splendid Pacific sunset, quite wasted on me. — Yann Martel

And what a story. The first thing that drew me in was disbelief. What? Humanity sins but it's God's Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine Father saying to me, 'Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas. Yesterday another one killed a black buck. Last week two of them ate a camel. The situation has become intolerable. Something must be done. I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed them you.' ... 'Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to do. Give me a moment to wash up'. What a downright weird story. What a peculiar psychology. — Yann Martel

I must go the washroom. I've shaken a lot of hands. — Yann Martel

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. — Yann Martel

seem to bear flowers or — Yann Martel

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

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. — Yann Martel

When animals fight, it is with the intent to kill and with the understanding that they may be killed. — Yann Martel

I wish I could convey the perfection of a seal slipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point to point or a lion merely turning its head. But language founders in such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it ... 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

Of hunger and thirst, thirst is the greater imperative. — Yann Martel

We always see the Holocaust in terms of black-and-white images, barking Germans, cowering Jews. We know very well-known fixed places like Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka, and Beltzec. Instead, war can live in a couple having a spat, when we say, "That was a real war." We very rarely have the Holocaust live in the terms of today. And I think that's a problem, because it becomes ancient history. — Yann Martel

Misery loves company, and madness calls it forth. — Yann Martel

Then normal sank. — Yann Martel

You may be astonished that in such a short period of time I could go from weeping over the muffled killing of a flying fish to gleefully bludgeoning to death a dorado. I could explain it by arguing that profiting from a pitiful flying fish's navigational mistake made me shy and sorrowful, while the excitement of actively capturing a great dorado made me sanguinary and self-assured. But in point of fact the explanation lies elsewhere. It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing. — Yann Martel

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 the curtain that we had to replace it regularly. Behind it was a mirror. — Yann Martel

A problem of the soul, a heaviness of the heart, a darkness of the conscience — Yann Martel

You can't quantify human pain the way you can measure out sugar. Death comes one individual at a time. — Yann Martel

It's true, too, that I'm tired of using books as political bullets and grenades. Books are too precious and wonderful to be used for long in such a fashion. — Yann Martel

Life on a lifeboat isn't much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn't be more simple, nor the stakes higher. — Yann Martel

What of God's silence? I think it over. I add:
An intellect confounded yet a trusting sense of presence and of ultimate purpose. — Yann Martel

If I didn't have children, I think my life would be a failure. — Yann Martel

I'm afraid the popularity of the domestic cat would drop very quickly if little kitty could roar its displeasure. — Yann Martel

The precept that location is key to the success of a business applies to art, and even to life itself: we thrive or wither depending on how nourishing our environment is. — Yann Martel

You see these guinea pigs? Well ... they'er not dangerous. — Yann Martel

There's no peace like the peace of an inner courtyard on a sunny day. — Yann Martel