Quotes from Yann Martel

there's sunlight and shade, spots and patterns of colour, your mind is elsewhere–so you don't make out what is right in front of you.

My heart began to beat like a merry drum and blood started flowing through my veins like cars from a wedding party honking their way through town.

A part of me did not want Richard Parker to die at all, because if he died I would be left alone with despair, a foe even more formidable than a tiger.

If Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, one day favours me bountifully, Oxford is fifth on the list of cities I would like to visit before I pass on, after Mecca, Varanasi, Jerusalem and Paris.

Within the limits of their nature, they make do with what they have.

They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love.

Strange in a familiar way, familiar in a strange way.

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!

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

a tie is a noose

And she prays with her eyes closed. It's just a crucifix. And if he's an ape, so be it-he's an ape. He's still the Son of God.

for, of course, with all animals, including us, to stare is an aggressive act.

For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So 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

So 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.

and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.

attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

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. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two or no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.

First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first. I

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. That

You can keep your sweaty, chatty Son to yourself.

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.

Whatever the reason for wanting to escape, sane or insane, zoo detractors should realize that animals don't escape to somewhere but from something. Something within their territory has frightened them - the intrusion of an enemy, the assault of a dominant animal, a startling noise - and set off a flight reaction.... Animals that escape go from the known into the unknown - and if there is one thing an animal hates above all else, it is the unknown.

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. It begins with your mind, always.

Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.