Quotessence
Home / Authors / Yann Martel Books
Yann Martel

Yann Martel Books

Author

Life of Pi

A source page for quotes linked to Yann Martel.

0 quotes

Self

A source page for quotes linked to Yann Martel.

0 quotes

Son of Nobody

A source page for quotes linked to Yann Martel.

0 quotes

Related Quotes

“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”

PhilosophyFear
Book:Life of Pi
Create image

“Ageing is not easy, Sennhora Castro. It's a terrible, incurable pathology. And great love is another pathology. It starts well. It's a most desirable disease. One wouldn't want to do without it. It's like yeast that corrupts the juice of grapes. One loves, one loves, one persists in loving-the incubation period can be very long- and then, with death, comes the heart break. Love must always meet its unwanted end.”

LoveDeathSufferingHeartbreakAgeingDiesease
Book:The High Mountains of Portugal
Create image

“If God on the Cross is God shamming a human tragedy, it turns the Passion of Christ into the Farce of Christ. The death of the Son must be real. Father Martin assured me it was. But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The Son must have the taste for death forever in His mouth. The Trinity must be tainted by it; there must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon Himself? Why not leave death to the mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love. That was Father Martin's answer.”

LoveInspirationalInspirational QuotesJesusInspirational LifeInspirational Love
Book:Life of Pi
Create image

“The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”

LifeFear
Book:Life of Pi
Create image

“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.”

Fear
Book:Life of Pi
Create image

“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.”

Fear
Book:Life of Pi
Create image

“There were many skies. The sky was invaded by great white clouds, flat on the bottom but round and billowy on top. The sky was completely cloudless, of a blue quite shattering to the senses. The sky was a heavy, suffocating blanket of grey cloud, but without promise of rain. The sky was thinly overcast. The sky was dappled with small, white, fleecy clouds. The sky was streaked with high, thin clouds that looked like a cotton ball stretched a part. The sky was a featureless milky haze. The sky was a density of dark and blustery rain clouds that passed by without delivering rain. The sky was painted with a small number of flat clouds that looked like sandbars. The sky was a mere block to allow a visual effect on the horizon: sunlight flooding the ocean, the vertical edges of between light and shadow perfectly distinct. The sky was a distant black curtain of falling rain. The sky was many clouds at many levels, some thick and opaque, others looking like smoke. The sky was black and spitting on my smiling face. The sky was nothing but falling water, a ceaseless deluge that wrinkled and bloated my skin and froze me stiff.”

BeautifulNatureBeautySkyClouds
Book:Life of Pi
Create image

“ماجدوى العقل إذا يارتشارد باركر , ؟ أوظيفته الوحيدة تدبير الأمور العملية فحسب ؟ تأمين الطعام والثياب والمأوى لماذا لا يقدم العقل أجوبة أكبر ؟ ولماذا الأسئلة التي نطرحها تفوق الأجوبة دائماً لماذا الشبكة كبيرة إذا كانت الأسماك قليلة إلى هذا الحد ؟”

Life LessonsMind Power
Book:Life of Pi
Create image

“I did not grasp all these details - and many more - right away. They came to my notice with time and as a result of necessity. I would be in the direst of dire straits, facing a bleak future, when some small thing, some detail, would transform itself and appear in my mind in a new light. It would no longer be the small thing it was before, but the most important thing in the world, the thing that would save my life. This happened time and again. How true it is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true.”

NeedNecessity
Author:Yann Martel
Create image

“In terms of life, the great lesson is letting go. Life is an exercise, ultimately, in letting go. You don’t notice that when you’re young but at some point things are slowly taken away from you. We’re not good at letting go. People want to look as if they’re 30 when they’re 70. Pop stars are still trying to churn out three-minute pop songs when they’re 78 years old. Writers churn out worse and worse books when most people don’t read them any more.”

LifeLetting GoReflectionSelf AwarenessAgingImpermanence
Author:Yann Martel
Create image

“You might have noticed that I have been sending you used books. I have done this not to save money, but to make a point which is that a used book, unlike a used car, hasn't lost any of its initial value. A good story rolls of the lot into the hands of its new reader as smoothly as the day it was written. And there's another reason for these used paperbacks that never cost much even when new; I like the idea of holding a book that someone else has held, of eyes running over lines that have already seen the light of other eyes. That, in one image, is the community of readers, is the communion of literature.”

Books
Book:What Is Stephen Harper Reading?: Yann Martel's Recommended Reading for a Prime Minister and Book Lovers of All Stripes
Create image

“What a thing to acknowledge in your heart! 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 is like losing-I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.”

DeathRelationshipsFamilyDeath Of A Loved One
Book:Life of Pi
Create image