Quotes from Yann Martel

The sad fact is there are no natural deaths, despite what doctors say. Every death is felt by someone as a murder, the unjust taking of a loved being. And even the luckiest of us will encounter at least one murder in our own lives: our own. It is our fate. We all live a murder mystery of which we are the victim.

proves to be a devastating hunter. Hyenas attack

Swimming instruction, which in time became swimming practice, was gruelling, but there was the deep pleasure of doing a stroke with increasing ease and speed, over and over, till hypnosis practically, the water turning from molten lead to liquid light.

High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. It was natural that, bereft and desperate as I was, in the throes of unremitting suffering, I should turn to God.

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.

This Son is a god who walked, a pedestrian god—and in a hot place, at that—with a stride like any human stride, the sandal reaching just above the rocks along the way; and when He splurged on transportation, it was a regular donkey. This Son is a god who died in three hours, with moans, gasps and laments. What kind of a god is that? What is there to inspire in this Son? Love, said Father Martin.

He smiled. "You already are, Piscine—in your heart. Whoever meets Christ in good faith is a Christian. Here in Munnar you met Christ.

If you take two steps towards God," he used to tell me, "God runs to you!

You bring joy and pain in equal measure. Joy because you are with me, but pain because it won't be for long.

Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.

We came to the zebras. Mr. Kumar had never heard of such creatures, let alone seen one. He was dumbfounded. "They're called zebras," I said. "Have they been painted with a brush?" "No, no. They look like that naturally." "What happens when it rains?" "Nothing." "The stripes don't melt?" "No.

What you don't realize is that we are a strange and forbidding species to wild animals. We fill them with fear. They avoid us as much as possible. It took centuries to still the fear in some pliable animals—domestication it's called—but most cannot get over their fear, and I doubt they ever will.

Animals are also poisoned. And there are indecencies

Houses: we bring together in a small space what in the wild is spread out.

There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, 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.

The guttural eruptions and long flowing vowels rolled just beneath my comprehension like a beautiful brook. I gazed into this brook for long spells of time. It was not wide, just one man's voice, but it was as deep as the universe.

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.

He was a man whose profession it was to love, and he would offer comfort and guidance to the best of his ability. I

You already are, Piscine--in your heart. Whoever meets Christ in good faith is a Christian. Here in Munnar you met Christ.

I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I have to turn miracle into routine.

Sá»± s?ng ??p ??n m?c cái ch?t Ä'ã ph?i lòng nó

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

Right away, death is word-eating.

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.