Quotes from Yann Martel

A great literary work can be completely, completely unpredictable. Which can sometimes make them very hard to read, but it gives them a great originality.

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.

There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God...The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening. 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...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.

My agency was pure and miraculous. It conferred power upon me.

Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.

Kita tentunya juga diperbolehkan merasa ragu. Tapi kita mesti jalan terus. Memilih keraguan sebagai falsafah hidup sama halnya memilih kemandekan sebagai sarana transportasi.

Nil magnum nisi bonum. Tak ada kemuliaan tanpa kebajikan.

Antara mencari untung dan melayani masyarakat tidak bisa seiring-sejalan.

and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.

a problem of the soul, a heaviness of the heart, a darkness of the conscience

I can well imagine an atheist's last words: "White, white! L-L-Love! My God!"—and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, "Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain," and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.

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.

Machen Sie weiter, bis das Tier, das Ihnen zusetzt - ob Tiger, ob Rhinozeros - grün vor Seekranheit ist. Sie müssen hören, wie es sich die Seele aus dem Leibe spuckt.

A plain is what a mountain aims to be: the closest you can come to being in outer space while yet having your feet on this planet.

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 me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them—and then they leap.

When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.

shelf, stand mountains of neatly stacked cans and packages. A reserve of food to last the siege of Leningrad. CHAPTER 7 It was my luck to have a few good teachers in my youth, men and women who came into my dark head and lit a match.

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.

Ha mi, állampolgárok nem támogatjuk m?vészeinket, akkor feláldozzuk képzeletünket a durva valóság oltárán, s végül már nem hiszünk semmiben, és értéktelen álmokat álmodunk.

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.

That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day.

The word 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?

The obsession with putting ourselves at the centre of everything is the bane not only of theologians but also of zoologists.

And so, when she first heard of Hare Krishnas, she didn't hear right. She heard Hairless Christians, and that is what they were to her for many years. when I corrected her, I told her that 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