Yann Martel Quotes

There people fail to realise that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. - Pi Patel in Life of Pi

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.

For 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.

"God is universal," spluttered the priest.
The imam nodded strong approval. "There is only one God."
"And with their one god Muslims are always causing troubles and provoking riots. The proof of how bad Islam is, is how uncivilized Muslims are,: pronounced the pandit.
"Says the slave-driver of the cast system," huffed the imam. "Hindus enslave people and worship dressed-up dolls."
"They are golden calf lovers. They kneel before the cows," the priest chimed in.
"While Christians kneel before a white man! They are flunkies of a foreign god. They are nightmare of all nonwhite people.

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

You may not believe in life, but I don't believe in death. Move on!

"I still smart a little at the slight. When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling. 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. I look at it and I say, "You've got the wrong fellow. You may not believe in life, but I don't believe in death. Move on!" The skull snickers and moves ever closer, but that doesn't surprise me. 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."

Because to suffer and do nothing is to be nothing, while to suffer and do something is to become someone.

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.

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

Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now.

The individual soul touches upon the world soul like a well reaches for the water table. That which sustains the universe beyond thought and language, and that which is at the core of us and struggles for expression, is the same thing. The finite within the infinite, the infinite within the finite.

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

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

I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me.