27 Yann Martell Quotes

Yann Martell quotes

1. My suffering had left me sad and gloomy.

2. Evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.

3. I was weeping because Richard Parker left me so unceremoniously. What a terrible thing it is to botch the farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things meaningful shape. It is 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 bungled good bye hurts me to this day. p.316-317

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

5. Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.

6. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. p.314

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

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

8. A person can get used to anything, even to killing.

9. 'Bapu Gandhi said, 'All religions are true.' I just want to love God,' I blurted out, and looked down, red in the face. p. 69

10. Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed. A school of fish appeared around the net or a knot cried out to be reknotted. Or I thought of my family of how they were spared this terrible agony. The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving. p. 209

11. I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. p. 161

12. I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time. p. 192

13. I cannot think of a better way to spread the faith. No thundering from a pulpit, no condemnation from bad churches, no peer pressure, just a book of scripture quietly waiting to say hello, as gentle and powerful as a little girl's kiss on your cheek. p. 208

14. There were many seas. The sea roared like a tiger. The sea whispered in your ear like a friend telling you secrets. The sea clinked like small change in a pocket. The sea thundered like avalanches. The sea hissed like sandpaper working on wood. The sea sounded like someone vomiting. The sea was dead silent. p. 215

15. Thank you. And so it goes with God.

16. 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.

17. 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? p. 297

18. 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.

19. If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn't love hard to believe? pg. 297

20. 'It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose, I dare say even wholeness.' pg. 204

21. 'Then Richard Parker, companion of my torment, awful, fierce thing that kept me alive, moved forward and disappeared forever from my life.' pg. 359

22. I know what you want. You want a story that won't suprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality. (p. 381)

23. Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether comtemplating it when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious

24. If you take two steps toward God,God runs toward you

25. 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 of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.

1. “My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition. I mock this skull.”

2. “No! No! No! My suffering does matter. I want to live! I can't help but mix my life with that of the universe. Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness - how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view I have of things? This peephole is all I've got!”