Yann Martel Quotes: 28

• It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.

  Life of Pi

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

  Life of Pi

• 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...

  Life of Pi

• I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart.

  Life of Pi

• You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.

  Life of Pi

• I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.

  Life of Pi

• You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.

  Life of Pi

• Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love.I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.

  Life of Pi

• 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.

  Life of Pi

• 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.

  Life of Pi

• If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?

  Life of Pi

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

  Life of Pi

• These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy...walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.

  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.

  Life of Pi

• 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.

  Life of Pi

• Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey.

  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.

  Life of Pi

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

  Beatrice and Virgil

• 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.

• ..the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.

  Life of Pi

• Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.

  Beatrice and Virgil

• Atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them -- and then they leap.

• To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity.

• 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.

  Life of Pi

• Religion is more than rite and ritual.

  Life of Pi

• Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?

  Beatrice and Virgil

• 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?

  Beatrice and Virgil

• Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer?