Top 400 Yann Martel Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “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!”

— Yann Martel

102. “Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away.”

— Yann Martel

103. “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.”

— Yann Martel

104. “Isn’t telling about something-using words, English or Japanese-already something of an invention? Isn’t just looking upon this world already something of an invention?”

— Yann Martel

105. “If you take two steps towards God,′ he used to tell me, ‘God runs to you!”

— Yann Martel

106. “With the very first rays of light it came alive in me: hope. As things emerged in outline and filled with colour, hope increased until it was like a song in my heart. Oh, what it was to bask in it!”

— Yann Martel

107. “We are all born like Catholics, aren’t we – in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God?”

— Yann Martel

108. “I thought I knew not only her habits but also her limits. This display of ferocity, of savage courage, made me realize that I was wrong. All my life I had known only a part of her.”

— Yann Martel

109. “If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

— Yann Martel

110. “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?”

— Yann Martel

111. “My zoology thesis was a functional analysis of the thyroid gland of the three-toed sloth. I chose the sloth because its demeanour – calm, quiet and introspective – did something to soothe my shattered self.”

— Yann Martel

112. “I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses.”

— Yann Martel

113. “My fingers, which a second before had been taste buds savouring the food a little ahead of my mouth, became dirty under his gaze. They froze like criminals caught in the act. I didn’t dare lick them. I wiped them guiltily on my napkin. He had no idea how deeply those words wounded me. They were like nails being driven into my flesh. I picked up the knife and fork. I had hardly ever used such instruments. My hands trembled. My sambar lost its taste.”

— Yann Martel

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

— Yann Martel

115. “Can there be any happiness greater than the happiness of salvation?”

— Yann Martel

116. “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.”

— Yann Martel

117. “You bring joy and pain in equal measure. Joy because you are with me, but pain because it wont be for long.”

— Yann Martel

118. “If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe?”

— Yann Martel

119. “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.”

— Yann Martel

120. “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.”

— Yann Martel

121. “The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other.”

— Yann Martel

122. “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 unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.”

— Yann Martel

123. “I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway’s worst mistake is to hope too much and to do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away.”

— Yann Martel

124. “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.”

— Yann Martel

125. “There’s no peace like the peace of an inner courtyard on a sunny day.”

— Yann Martel

126. “We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.”

— Yann Martel

127. “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. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up.”

— Yann Martel

128. “Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.”

— Yann Martel

129. “The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. It was natural that, bereft and desperate as I was, in the throes of unremitting suffering. I should turn to God.”

— Yann Martel

130. “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.”

— Yann Martel

131. “I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.”

— Yann Martel

132. “Come aboard if your destination is oblivion- it should be our next stop. We can sit together. You can have the window seat if you want. But it’s a sad view.”

— Yann Martel

133. “Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity.”

— Yann Martel

134. “I was giving up. I would have given up – if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said “I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. 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 everyday. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen.”

— Yann Martel

135. “I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape.”

— Yann Martel

136. “Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time.”

— Yann Martel

137. “Whatever the reason for wanting to escape, sane or insane, zoo detractors should realize that animals don’t escape to somewhere but from something.”

— Yann Martel

138. “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.”

— Yann Martel

139. “Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven says. Even on a symbolic lovel, that’s creation in frenzy.”

— Yann Martel

140. “I felt I was beating a rainbow to death.”

— Yann Martel

141. “We fight no matter the cost of battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success. We fight to the very end. It is not the question of courage. It is something constitutional, an ability to let go. It maybe nothing more than life-hungry stupidity.”

— Yann Martel

142. “He seems to be attracting religions the way a dog attracts fleas.”

— Yann Martel

143. “What is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities – the getting of food, clothing and shelter? 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 of there’s so little fish to catch?”

— Yann Martel

144. “Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love.”

— Yann Martel

145. “A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely.”

— Yann Martel

146. “I ask you, is it the fig tree’s fault that it’s not the season for figs? What kind of thing is that to do to an innocent tree, wither it instantly?”

— Yann Martel

147. “I cannot think of a better way to spread the faith. No thundering from a pulpit, no condemnation from bad churches, no peer pressure, just a book of scripture quietly waiting to say hello, as gentle and powerful as a little girl’s kiss on your cheek.”

— Yann Martel

148. “Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed.”

— Yann Martel

149. “Books lined the shelves of bookstores like kids standing in a row to play baseball or soccer, and mine was the gangly, unathletic kid that no one wanted on their team.”

— Yann Martel

150. “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.”

— Yann Martel