Quotes from Yann Martel

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent.

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity – it's envy.

No one dies of nausea, but it can seriously sap the will to live.

If we citizens do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the alter of crude reality, and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.

All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. - The Life of Pi

In my experience, a castaway's worst mistake is to hope too much and to do too little.

Isn't telling about something--using words, English or Japanese--already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention? 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?

Of hunger and thirst, thirst is the greater imperative.

What a terrible disease that must be if it could kill God in a man.

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

My alarm clock during my childhood was a pride of lions.

fear...is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life...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 becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I had ever killed. I was now a killer. I was now as guilty as Cain. I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious, and now I had blood on my hands. It's a terrible burden to carry. All sentient life is sacred.

If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn't love hard to believe? 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?

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.

I am magical: I can bleed for five days and not die.

Nil magnum nisi bonum. No greatness without goodness.

There people fail to realise that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. - Pi Patel in Life of Pi

Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity.

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.

Come aboard if your destination is oblivion - it should be our next stop.

The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.

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 defense, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush.

If we, citizens do not support our artists, then we sacrifice out imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.