Quotes from Yann Martel

people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. 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.

On a day when I estimated it was my mothers birthday, I sang 'Happy Birthday' to her out loud.

O sa fiu cinstit. Nu ateii imi stau in gat, ci agnosticii. Indoiala e buna un timp. Toti trebuie sa trecem prin Gradina Ghetsemani. Daca si Cristos a simtit-o, trebuie s-o facem si noi. Daca Cristos a petrecut o noapte dureroasa in rugaciune, daca a izbucnit, pe cruce:"Doamne, Dumnezeul meu, de ce m-ai parasit?", atunci toti avem dreptul la indoiala.Dar trebuie sa mergem mai departe. A alege indoiala ca filozofie de viata e la fel cum ai alege imobilitatea ca mijloc de transport.

How could the stars, sparkle as they might, help me find my way if they kept moving?

It felt good to bring my forehead to the ground. Immediately it felt like a deeply religious contact.

It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while......But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

The stars shone with such fears, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark.

Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body.

Tigers, indeed all animals, do not favour violence as a means of settling scores. When animals fight, it is with the intent to kill and with the understanding that they may be killed. A clash is costly. And so animals have a full system of cautionary signals designed to avoid a showdown, and they are quick to back down when they feel they can. Rarely will a tiger attack a fellow predator without warning .... It will appraise the situation. If it decides there is no threat, it will turn away....

Yes! Practice-singular!' the wise men screamed in unison. Three index fingers, like punctuation marks, jumped to attention in the air to emphasize their point (Life of Pi 68).

These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. 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. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush.

That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality?

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? (p. 302)

It fell into my cup with a clink, and no doubt I will be considered to have abandoned the last vestiges of humanness by those who do not understand the degree of my suffering when I say that it sounded to my ears like the music of a five-rupee coin dropped into a beggar's cup. A

No greatness without goodness.

in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.

To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures to people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It

I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen every day.

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

The sun was beginning to pull the curtains on the day.

The grand march of progress apparently includes the unfortunate necessity of chopping down every obstacle in its way.

She heard "Hairless Christians", and that is what they were to her for many years. When I corrected her, I told her that in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.

It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose, I dare say even wholeness.

They were like curmudgeonly old friends who would never admit that they liked me yet came round to see me all the time. The