Yann Martel Quotes

The truth of life is that Brahman is no different from atman, the spiritual force within us, what you might call the soul.

Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field-but they're all we have.

Things didn't turn out the way they're supposed to, but what can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.

Can there be any happiness greater than the happiness of salvation?

In a healthy individual, a broken bone that has healed properly is strongest where it was once broken. You have not lost any life, Henry told himself. You will still get your fair share of years. Yet the quality of his life changed. Once you've been struck by violence, you acquire companions that never leave you entirely: Suspicion, Fear, Anxiety, Despair, Joylessness. The natural smile is taken from you and the natural pleasures you once enjoyed lose their appeal.

That's the nature of grief: It's a creature with many arms but few legs, and it staggers about, searching for support.

Isn't telling about something — using words, English or Japanese — already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention? The world 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?

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

Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away.

How strange, this habit of weeping. Do animals weep? Surely they feel sadness — but do they express it with tears? He doubts it. He has never heard of a weeping cat or dog, or of a weeping wild animal. It seems to be a uniquely human trait. He doesn’t see what purpose it serves. He weeps hard, even violently, and at the end of it, what? Desolate tiredness. A handkerchief soaked in tears and mucus. Red eyes for everyone to notice. And weeping is undignified. It lies beyond the tutorials of etiquette and remains a personal idiom, individual in its expression. The twist of face, quantity of tears, quality of sob, pitch of voice, volume of clamour, effect on the complexion, the play of hands, the posture taken: One discovers weeping — one’s weeping personality — only upon weeping. It is a strange discovery, not only to others but to oneself.

I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. 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. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

My greatest wish — other than salvation — was to have a book.

My greatest wish — other than salvation — was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One I could read again and again, with new eyes and a fresh understanding each time.

"Repetition is important in the training not only of animals but also of humans." Yann Martel in Life of Pi, Page 25

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