Yann Martel citations (110 citations, Page 2)

Yann Martel: 110 citations1 J'aime

Yann Martel Citations

“Ensuite, la peur se tourne vers votre corps, qui sent déjà que quelque chose de terrible et de mauvais est entrain de survenir. Déjà, votre souffle s'est envolé comme un oiseau et votre cran a fui en rampant comme un serpent. Maintenant, vous avez la langue qui s'affale comme un opossum, tandis que votre mâchoire commence à galoper sur place. Vos oreilles n'entendent plus. Vos muscles se mettent à trembler comme si vous aviez la malaria et vos genoux à frémir comme si vous dansiez. Votre coeur pompe follement, tandis que votre sphincter se relâche. Il en va ainsi de tout le reste de votre corps. Chaque partie de vous, à sa manière, perd ses moyens. Il n'y a que vos yeux à bien fonctionner. Ils prêtent toujours pleine attention à la peur.

Vous prenez rapidement des décisions irréfléchies. Vous abandonnez vos derniers alliés: l'espoir et la confiance. Voilà que vous vous êtes défait vous-même. La peur, qui n'est qu'une impression, a triomphé de vous.

Cette expérience est difficile à exprimer. Car la peur, la véritable peur, celle qui vous ébranle jusqu'au plus profond de vous, celle que vous ressentez au moment où vous êtes face à votre destin final, se blottit insidieusement dans votre mémoire, comme une gangrène: elle cherche à tout pourrir, même les mots pour parler d'elle. Vous devez donc vous battre très fort pour l'appeler par son nom. Il faut que vous luttiez durement pour braquer la lumière des mots sur elle. Car si vous ne le faites pas, si la peur devient une noirceur indicible que vous évitez, que vous parvenez peut-être même à oublier, vous vous exposez à d'autres attaques de peur parce que vous n'aurez jamais vraiment bataillé contre l'ennemi qui vous a défait.”

Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Life of Pi

“Je dois dire un mot sur la peur. C'est le seul adversaire réel de la vie. Il n'y a que la peur qui puisse vaincre la vie. C'est une ennemie habile et perfide, et je le sais bien. Elle n'a aucune décence, ne respecte ni lois ni conventions, ne manifeste aucune clémence. Elle attaque votre point le plus faible, qu'elle trouve avec une facilité déconcertante. Elle naît d'abord et invariablement dans votre esprit. Un moment vous vous sentez calme, en plein contrôle, heureux. Puis la peur, déguisée en léger doute, s'immisce dans votre pensée comme un espion. Ce léger doute rencontre l'incrédulité et celle-ci tente de le repousser. Mais l'incrédulité est un simple fantassin. Le doute s'en débarrasse sans se donner de mal. Vous devenez inquiet. La raison vient à votre rescousse. Vous êtes rassuré. La raison dispose de tous les instruments de pointe de la technologie moderne. Mais, à votre surprise et malgré des tactiques supérieures et un nombre impressionnant de victoires, la raison est mise K.- O. Vous sentez que vous vous affaiblissez, que vous hésitez. Votre inquiétude devient frayeur.”

Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Life of Pi

Yann Martel: Citations en anglais

“You can get used to anything - haven't I already said that? Isn't that what all survivors say?”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 99, p. 330
Contexte: 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?”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“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.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“I love Canada… It is a great country much too cold for good sense, inhabited by compassionate, intelligent people with bad hairdos.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

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

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 1, p. 5

“In my youth, it was my good luck to have a few good teachers, men and women, who came into my head and lit a match.”

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Yann Martel

“I couldn't get Him out of my head. Still can't. I spent three solid days thinking about Him. The more He bothered me, the less I coul forget Him. And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they've known for a great unknown beyond the horizon?… The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“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!”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“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.”

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Yann Martel

“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.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“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?”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“My suffering left me sad and gloomy.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 1, p. 3

“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.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

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

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“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.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

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

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 99, p. 336
Contexte: 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.

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

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Yann Martel

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

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Yann Martel livre Beatrice and Virgil

Source: Beatrice and Virgil

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

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“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.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“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.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

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

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Yann Martel

“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.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 74, p. 232
Contexte: 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.

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

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

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

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“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.”

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Yann Martel livre Histoire de Pi

Source: Life of Pi