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Life of Pi
Yann MartelBeatrice and Virgil
Yann MartelFamous Yann Martel Quotes
Yann Martel Quotes about life
Variant: To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 7, p. 31
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 1, p. 6
Context: 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.
Yann Martel Quotes about love
“Bapu Gandhi said, ‘All religions are true.’ I just want to love God.”
Source: Life of Pi
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 74, p. 232
Context: 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.
“Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love.”
Variant: Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love - but sometimes it was so hard to love.
Source: Life of Pi
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Yann Martel Quotes
“You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.”
Source: Life of Pi
“I was weeping because Richard Parker left me so unceremoniously.”
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 94, p. 316
Context: 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.
Source: Beatrice & Virgil (2010), p. 175
Context: I remember the first slap, just as I was being brought in. Already then something was lost forever, a basic trust. If there's an exquisite collection of Meissen porcelain and a man takes a cup and deliberately drops it to the floor, shattering it, why wouldn't he then proceed to break everything else? What difference does it make, cup or tureen, once the man has made clear his disregard for porcelain? With that first blow, something akin to porcelain shattered in me. It was a hard slap, forceful yet casual, given for no reason, before I had even identified myself. If they would do that to me, why wouldn't they do worse? Indeed, how could they stop themselves? A single blow is a dot, meaningless. It's a line that is wanted, a connection between the dots that will give purpose and direction. One blow demands a second and then a third and onwards.
Source: Beatrice & Virgil (2010), p. 23
Context: Colonialism is a terrible bane for a people upon whom it is imposed, but a blessing for a language. English's drive to exploit the new and the alien, its zeal in robbing words from other languages, its incapacity to feel qualms over the matter, its museum-size overabundance of vocabulary, its shoulder-shrug approach to spelling, its don't-worry-be-happy concern for grammar—the result was a language whose colour and wealth Henry loved. In his entirely personal experience of [languages], English was jazz music, German was classical music, French was ecclesiastical music, and Spanish was music from the streets. Which is to say, stab his heart and it would bleed French, slice his brain open and its convolutions would be lined with English and German, and touch his hands and they would feel Spanish.
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 99, pp. 330–331
Context: I applied my reason at every moment. Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.
“I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time.”
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 63, p. 212
Context: 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.
“Already then something was lost forever, a basic trust.”
Source: Beatrice & Virgil (2010), p. 175
Context: I remember the first slap, just as I was being brought in. Already then something was lost forever, a basic trust. If there's an exquisite collection of Meissen porcelain and a man takes a cup and deliberately drops it to the floor, shattering it, why wouldn't he then proceed to break everything else? What difference does it make, cup or tureen, once the man has made clear his disregard for porcelain? With that first blow, something akin to porcelain shattered in me. It was a hard slap, forceful yet casual, given for no reason, before I had even identified myself. If they would do that to me, why wouldn't they do worse? Indeed, how could they stop themselves? A single blow is a dot, meaningless. It's a line that is wanted, a connection between the dots that will give purpose and direction. One blow demands a second and then a third and onwards.
Source: Beatrice & Virgil (2010), p. 103
Context: To my mind, faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like you, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can't. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn't want to be in the sun?
“If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?”
Source: Life of Pi
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 16, pp. 54–55
“Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover.”
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 99, p. 330
Context: 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?
“Can there be any happiness greater than the happiness of salvation?”
Source: Life of Pi
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 1, p. 5
“My suffering left me sad and gloomy.”
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 1, p. 3
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 99, p. 336
Context: I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise 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.
“My feelings can perhaps be imagined, but they can hardly be described.”
Source: Life of Pi
Variant: 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.
Source: Life of Pi
“As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound.”
Source: Life of Pi
“My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific ocean.”
Source: Life of Pi
“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life.”
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 56, p. 178
“I explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory.”
Source: Life of Pi
