Yann Martel: Trending quotes (page 3)

“Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness--how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I've got!”

“I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.”

“Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.”

“Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch?”

“My suffering left me sad and gloomy.”

“There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God… These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside.”

“It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing.”

“I thought they were helping me. I was so full of trust in them that I felt grateful as they carried me in the air. Only when they threw me overboard did I begin to have doubts.”

“I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know.”

“We believe what we see.’… What do you do when you’re in the dark?”

“Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.”

“My feelings can perhaps be imagined, but they can hardly be described.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.”

“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.”

“When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.”

“… for everything has a trace of the divine in it.”

“High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.”