Quotes from Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Nature can put on a thrilling show. The stage is vast, the lighting is dramatic, the extras are innumerable, and the budget for special effects is absolutely unlimited.

It seems to be a law of human nature that those who live by the sea are suspiciousof swimmers, just as those who live in the mountains are suspicious of mountainclimbers.

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

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

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

As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound.

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

The paths to liberation are numerous, but the bank along the way is always the same, the Bank of Karma, where the liberation account of each of us is credited or debited depending on our actions.

I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.

Religion is more than rite and ritual.

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

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

At moments of wonder, it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far.

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

Mockery be damned, my urine looked delicious.

Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can get.

Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer.

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

Time and sunshine healed a sore, but the process was slow, and new boils appeared if I didn't stay dry.

..the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.

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.

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, possesive 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.

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. (1.8.4)

Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous possessive love that grabs at what it can.